Bryant-s Seventieth Birthday Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BBB CCC DDD EEE FFG AAH III JJJ AAA KKK LLM NNON PQP RRR SSS TTT UUU VVV WWW XXX YYY ZZZ AHA A2A2A2 ZZZ B2B2B2 C2C2C2 D2D2D2D2NOVEMBER | A |
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O EVEN HANDED Nature we confess | B |
This life that men so honor love and bless | B |
Has filled thine olden measure Not the less | B |
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We count the precious seasons that remain | C |
Strike not the level of the golden grain | C |
But heap it high with years that earth may gain | C |
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What heaven can lose for heaven is rich in song | D |
Do not all poets dying still prolong | D |
Their broken chants amid the seraph throng | D |
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Where blind no more Ionia's bard is seen | E |
And England's heavenly minstrel sits between | E |
The Mantuan and the wan cheeked Florentine | E |
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This was the first sweet singer in the cage | F |
Of our close woven life A new born age | F |
Claims in his vesper song its heritage | G |
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Spare us oh spare us long our heart's desire | A |
Moloch who calls our children through the fire | A |
Leaves us the gentle master of the lyre | H |
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We count not on the dial of the sun | I |
The hours the minutes that his sands have run | I |
Rather as on those flowers that one by one | I |
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From earliest dawn their ordered bloom display | J |
Till evening's planet with her guiding ray | J |
Leads in the blind old mother of the day | J |
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We reckon by his songs each song a flower | A |
The long long daylight numbering hour by hour | A |
Each breathing sweetness like a bridal bower | A |
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His morning glory shall we e'er forget | K |
His noontide's full blown lily coronet | K |
His evening primrose has not opened yet | K |
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Nay even if creeping Time should hide the skies | L |
In midnight from his century laden eyes | L |
Darkened like his who sang of Paradise | M |
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Would not some hidden song bud open bright | N |
As the resplendent cactus of the night | N |
That floods the gloom with fragrance and with | O |
light | N |
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How can we praise the verse whose music flows | P |
With solemn cadence and majestic close | Q |
Pure as the dew that filters through the rose | P |
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How shall we thank him that in evil days | R |
He faltered never nor for blame nor praise | R |
Nor hire nor party shamed his earlier lays | R |
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But as his boyhood was of manliest hue | S |
So to his youth his manly years were true | S |
All dyed in royal purple through and through | S |
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He for whose touch the lyre of Heaven is strung | T |
Needs not the flattering toil of mortal tongue | T |
Let not the singer grieve to die unsung | T |
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Marbles forget their message to mankind | U |
In his own verse the poet still we find | U |
In his own page his memory lives enshrined | U |
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As in their amber sweets the smothered bees | V |
As the fair cedar fallen before the breeze | V |
Lies self embalmed amidst the mouldering trees | V |
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Poets like youngest children never grow | W |
Out of their mother's fondness Nature so | W |
Holds their soft hands and will not let them go | W |
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Till at the last they track with even feet | X |
Her rhythmic footsteps and their pulses beat | X |
Twinned with her pulses and their lips repeat | X |
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The secrets she has told them as their own | Y |
Thus is the inmost soul of Nature known | Y |
And the rapt minstrel shares her awful throne | Y |
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O lover of her mountains and her woods | Z |
Her bridal chamber's leafy solitudes | Z |
Where Love himself with tremulous step intrudes | Z |
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Her snows fall harmless on thy sacred fire | A |
Far be the day that claims thy sounding lyre | H |
To join the music of the angel choir | A |
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Yet since life's amplest measure must be filled | A2 |
Since throbbing hearts must be forever stilled | A2 |
And all must fade that evening sunsets gild | A2 |
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Grant Father ere he close the mortal eyes | Z |
That see a Nation's reeking sacrifice | Z |
Its smoke may vanish from these blackened skies | Z |
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Then when his summons comes since come it must | B2 |
And looking heavenward with unfaltering trust | B2 |
He wraps his drapery round him for the dust | B2 |
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His last fond glance will show him o'er his head | C2 |
The Northern fires beyond the zenith spread | C2 |
In lambent glory blue and white and red | C2 |
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The Southern cross without its bleeding load | D2 |
The milky way of peace all freshly strowed | D2 |
And every white throned star fixed in its lost | D2 |
abode | D2 |
Oliver Wendell Holmes
(1)
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