Thoughts At A Vestibule Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKLMKNOPKGQ RSTUVVWXYVZVA2VVB2C2 B2D2V VVE2F2YG2B2H2 I2VF2V I2J2VHK2VL2M2VN2VVVF 2O2F2P2Q2F2F2VR2S2T2 V C2J2U2HVV2VL2VW2YX2Y 2L2B2Z2VVVYA3VB3VC3Z 2G2D3VVE3F3X2N2G3H3X 2LZ2OHere's a vestibule On holidays | A |
Overcome by slavish fear | B |
The whole population in a state of awe | C |
Rushes to the sacred doors | D |
Having left their names and ranks | E |
All these visitors return then to their homes | F |
They are all so deeply satisfied | G |
You might think this was their calling | H |
Yet on other days this ornate vestibule | I |
Is beset by much more wretched sorts | J |
Schemers and position seekers | K |
By a widow and an aged man | L |
To and fro each morning without cease | M |
Couriers bustle with their papers | K |
Some returning seekers whistle a tune | N |
While some others walk and weep | O |
Once I saw some peasants who stopped by | P |
Simple Russian villagers | K |
Having crossed themselves they stood aside | G |
And they hung their flaxen heads | Q |
Then up came a doorman Let us in they said | R |
With a look of torment and of hope | S |
He surveyed the visitors how ugly they all looked | T |
Sunburned hands and faces | U |
Threadbare coats upon their backs | V |
On bent shoulders knapsacks | V |
Crosses round the neck and bloodied feet | W |
Shod in hand made bast | X |
Must have come from far away | Y |
From some far flung province | V |
Someone yelled out to the doorman Send them off | Z |
Our boss doesn't care for ragged mobs | V |
And the door was shut In time | A2 |
They untied their bags | V |
But the doorman spurned their meager offerings | V |
And they walked off through the burning sun | B2 |
Saying God will be the judge | C2 |
With their arms thrown wide in consternation | B2 |
I observed them 'til they disappeared | D2 |
And they never donned their caps | V |
- | |
While the owner of this lavish palace | V |
Was still nestled in deep sleep's embrace | V |
You who think so highly of a life | E2 |
Full of thrilling shameless flattery | F2 |
Gluttony philandering and play | Y |
Wake now There's a greater pleasure | G2 |
Call them back For you are their salvation | B2 |
But the sated are to goodness deaf | H2 |
- | |
Heavenly thunder doesn't frighten you | I2 |
Earthly thunders you hold in your hands | V |
That is why these unknown men must carry | F2 |
Grief disconsolate within their hearts | V |
- | |
But what does this desperate sorrow mean to you | I2 |
What do you care for these desperate folk | J2 |
A life racing by in endless holidays | V |
Keeps you from awakening | H |
And why care For you the people's good | K2 |
Is an idle game for scribblers | V |
You will live a glorious life without it | L2 |
And you'll die a glorious death | M2 |
Your declining days will pass | V |
Peacefully like some Arcadian idyll | N2 |
Under Sicily's charming skies | V |
In the fragrant shade of trees | V |
Contemplating crimson suns | V |
As they sink into the azure sea | F2 |
Casting shining rays of gold | O2 |
Lulled by the soft melody | F2 |
Of Tyrrhenean waves just like a child | P2 |
You will slumber satisfied in every need | Q2 |
By your dear and loving family | F2 |
Who await your death impatiently | F2 |
Your remains they'll transport back to us | V |
To reward them with a funeral feast | R2 |
Like a hero you'll be lowered to the grave | S2 |
By your homeland silently cursed | T2 |
Glorified by boisterous praise | V |
- | |
Still why bother such a personage | C2 |
With the pains of trivial folk | J2 |
Rage at them instead a great idea | U2 |
It's less dangerous and more amusing | H |
Find ourselves some kind of solace | V |
What a peasant bears is no big deal | V2 |
It's what fate that guides us | V |
Has decreed And anyway he's used to it | L2 |
In some lowly inn outside the city gates | V |
These poor men will drink their final rubles down | W2 |
And then head for home begging all the way | Y |
Moaning humbly O my homeland | X2 |
Tell me now of some abode | Y2 |
I have surely never seen it | L2 |
Where your sower and your guardian | B2 |
The meek Russian peasant does not moan | Z2 |
In the fields he moans and on the roads | V |
In the prisons and stockades he moans | V |
And in ore mines wearing iron chains | V |
Moans burst out from barns and stacks of hay | Y |
And from carts where he sleeps in the steppe | A3 |
In his own poor hut he moans | V |
Warmed by nothing on God's earth | B3 |
In each godforsaken town he moans | V |
In the vestibules of courts and palaces as well | C3 |
Go out to the Volga hear whose moan | Z2 |
Rises over Russia's greatest river | G2 |
In our land this moan is called a song | D3 |
It's the boatmen straining in their traces | V |
Volga Volga In the spring your torrents | V |
Cannot flood the fields as much | E3 |
As our people's awful pain | F3 |
Floods our land | X2 |
Where you are there's moaning O my people | N2 |
What can all this endless moaning mean | G3 |
Will you ever waken filled with strength | H3 |
Or obeying fate's command | X2 |
Have you done all that you can | L |
Fashioning a song so like a moan | Z2 |
While your soul remains forever mired in sleep | O |
Nikolay Alekseyevich Nekrasov
(1)
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