Astraea: The Balance Of Illusions Poem Rhyme Scheme

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WHAT secret charm long whispering in mine ear	A
Allures attracts compels and chains me here	A
Where murmuring echoes call me to resign	B
Their sacred haunts to sweeter lips than mine	B
Where silent pathways pierce the solemn shade	C
In whose still depths my feet have never strayed	C
Here in the home where grateful children meet	D
And I half alien take the stranger's seat	D
Doubting yet hoping that the gift I bear	E
May keep its bloom in this unwonted air	E
Hush idle fancy with thy needless art	F
Speak from thy fountains O my throbbing	G
heart	F
	-
Say shall I trust these trembling lips to tell	H
The fireside tale that memory knows so well	H
How in the days of Freedom's dread campaign	I
A home bred schoolboy left his village plain	I
Slow faring southward till his wearied feet	D
Pressed the worn threshold of this fair retreat	D
How with his comely face and gracious mien	J
He joined the concourse of the classic green	J
Nameless unfriended yet by nature blest	K
With the rich tokens that she loves the best	K
The flowing locks his youth's redundant crown	L
Smoothed o'er a brow unfurrowed by a frown	L
The untaught smile that speaks so passing	G
plain A world all hope a past without a stain	I
The clear hued cheek whose burning current glows	M
Crimson in action carmine in repose	M
Gifts such as purchase with unminted gold	N
Smiles from the young and blessings from the old	N
	-
Say shall my hand with pious love restore	O
The faint far pictures time beholds no more	O
How the grave Senior he whose later fame	P
Stamps on our laws his own undying name	P
Saw from on high with half paternal joy	Q
Some spark of promise in the studious boy	Q
And bade him enter with benignant tone	R
Those stately precincts which he called his own	R
Where the fresh student and the youthful sage	S
Read by one taper from the common page	S
How the true comrade whose maturer date	T
Graced the Urge honors of his ancient State	T
Sought his young friendship which through every change	U
No time could weaken no remove estrange	U
How the great MASTER reverend solemn wise	V
Fixed on his face those calm majestic eyes	V
Full of grave meaning where a child might read	W
The Hebraist's patience and the Pilgrim's creed	X
But warm with flashes of parental fire	Y
That drew the stripling to his second sire	Y
How kindness ripened till the youth might dare	E
Take the low seat beside his sacred chair	E
While the gray scholar bending o'er the young	Z
Spelled the square types of Abraham's ancient tongue	Z
Or with mild rapture stooped devoutly o'er	Y
His small coarse leaf alive with curious lore	O
Tales of grim judges at whose awful beck	A2
Flashed the broad blade across a royal neck	A2
Or learned dreams of Israel's long lost child	B2
Found in the wanderer of the western wild	B2
	-
Dear to his age were memories such as these	C2
Leaves of his June in life's autumnal breeze	C2
Such were the tales that won my boyish ear	A
Told in low tones that evening loves to hear	A
	-
Thus in the scene I pass so lightly o'er	Y
Trod for a moment then beheld no more	O
Strange shapes and dim unseen by other eyes	V
Through the dark portals of the past arise	V
I see no more the fair embracing throng	D2
I hear no echo to my saddened song	D2
No more I heed the kind or curious gaze	E2
The voice of blame the rustling thrill of praise	E2
Alone alone the awful past I tread	W
White with the marbles of the slumbering dead	W
One shadowy form my dreaming eyes behold	N
That leads my footsteps as it led of old	N
One floating voice amid the silence heard	F2
Breathes in my ear love's long unspoken word	F2
These are the scenes thy youthful eyes have known	R
My heart's warm pulses claim them as its own	R
The sapling compassed in thy fingers' clasp	G2
My arms scarce circle in their twice told grasp	G2
Vet in each leaf of yon o'ershadowing tree	H2
I read a legend that was traced by thee	H2
Year after year the living wave has beat	D
These smooth worn channels with its trampling feet	D
Yet in each line that scores the grassy sod	I2
I see the pathway where thy feet have trod	I2
Though from the scene that hears my faltering lay	J2
The few that loved thee long have passed away	J2
Thy sacred presence all the landscape tills	E2
Its groves and plains and adamantine hills	E2
Ye who have known the sudden tears that flow	K2
Sad tears yet sweet the dews of twilight woe	K2
When led by chance your wandering eye has crossed	L2
Some poor memorial of the loved and lost	L2
Bear with my weakness as I look around	M2
On the dear relics of this holy ground	M2
These bowery cloisters shadowed and serene	J
My dreams have pictured ere mine eyes have seen	J
	-
And oh forgive me if the flower I brought	N2
Droops in my hand beside this burning thought	N2
The hopes and fears that marked this destined hour	Y
The chill of doubt the startled throb of power	Y
The flush of pride the trembling glow of shame	P
All fade away and leave my FATHER'S name	P
	-
What life is this that spreads in sudden birth	O2
Its plumes of light around a new born earth	O2
Is this the sun that brought the unwelcome day	J2
Pallid and glimmering with hi lifeless ray	J2
Or through the sash that bars yon narrow cage	S
Slanted intrusive on the opened page	S
Is this soft breath the same complaining gale	P2
That filled my slumbers with its murmuring wail	P2
Is this green mantle of elastic sod	I2
The same brown desert with its frozen clod	I2
Where the last ridges of the dingy snow	K2
Lie till the windflower blooms unstained below	K2
	-
Thus to my heart its wonted tides return	Q2
When sullen Winter breaks his crystal urn	Q2
And o'er the turf in wild profusion showers	E2
Its dewy leaflets and ambrosial flowers	E2
In vacant rapture for a while I range	U
Through the wide scene of universal change	U
Till as the statue in its nerves of stone	R
Felt the new senses wakening one by one	R2
Each long closed inlet finds its destined ray	J2
Through the dark curtain Spring has rent away	J2
I crush the buds the clustering lilacs bear	E
The same sweet fragrance that I loved is there	E
The same fresh hues each opening disk reveals	E2
Soft as of old each silken petal feels	E2
The birch's rind its flavor still retains	E2
Its boughs still ringing with the self same strains	E2
Above around rekindling Nature claims	E2
Her glorious altars wreathed in living flames	E2
Undimmed unshadowed far as morning shines	E2
Feeds with fresh incense her eternal shrines	E2
Lost in her arms her burning life I share	E
Breathe the wild freedom of her perfumed air	E
From Heaven's fair face the long drawn shadows roll	S2
And all its sunshine floods my opening soul	S2
	-
See while I speak my fireside joys return	Q2
The lamp rekindles and the ashes burn	Q2
The dream of summer fades before their ray	J2
As in red firelight sunshine dies away	J2
A two fold picture ere the first was gone	T2
The deepening outline of the next was drawn	T2
And wavering fancy hardly dares to choose	E2
The first or last of her dissolving views	E2
	-
No Delphic sage is wanted to divine	B
The shape of Truth beneath my gauzy line	B
Yet there are truths like schoolmates once well known	R
But half remembered not enough to own	R
That lost from sight in life's bewildering train	I
May be like strangers introduced again	U2
Dressed in new feathers as from time to time	V2
May please our friends the milliners of rhyme	V2
	-
Trust not it says the momentary hue	W2
Whose false complexion paints the present view	W2
Red yellow violet stain the rainbow's light	I2
The prism dissolves and all again is white	I2
	-
But how alas among our eager race	E2
Shall smiling candor show her girlish face	E2
What place is secret to the meddling crew	W2
Whose trade is settling what we all shall do	W2
What verdict sacred from the busy fools	E2
That sell the jargon of their outlaw schools	E2
What pulpit certain to be never vexed	I2
With libels sanctioned by a holy text	I2
Where my country is the spot that yields	E2
The freedom fought for on a hundred fields	E2
	-
Not one strong tyrant holds the servile chain	I
Where all may vote and each may hope to reign	I
One sturdy c	H2

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Astraea: The Balance Of Illusions Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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