The Flaâneur Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCCABCBCDDDCCABABEF GFFGHHIJJK ALMMANMNLNA KCKKKCOOPQPPAAR SCTTCCSC UVWWWVVXXUXYCCYOZOOC CA2ZZCA2 RKB2B2RRK C2JJD2D2OOOC2C2C2OO ZCZZCPE2E2PF2G2H2BF2 BCCBKKBCPCKKPI love all sights of earth and skies | A |
From flowers that glow to stars that shine | B |
The comet and the penny show | C |
All curious things above below | C |
Hold each in turn my wandering eyes | A |
I claim the Christian Pagan's line | B |
Humani nihil even so | C |
And is not human life divine | B |
When soft the western breezes blow | C |
And strolling youths meet sauntering maids | D |
I love to watch the stirring trades | D |
Beneath the Vallombrosa shades | D |
Our much enduring elms bestow | C |
The vender and his rhetoric's flow | C |
That lambent stream of liquid lies | A |
The bait he dangles from his line | B |
The gudgeon and his gold washed prize | A |
I halt before the blazoned sign | B |
That bids me linger to admire | E |
The drama time can never tire | F |
The little hero of the hunch | G |
With iron arm and soul of fire | F |
And will that works his fierce desire | F |
Untamed unscared unconquered Punch | G |
My ear a pleasing torture finds | H |
In tones the withered sibyl grinds | H |
The dame sans merci's broken strain | I |
Whom I erewhile perchance have known | J |
When Orleans filled the Bourbon throne | J |
A siren singing by the Seine | K |
- | |
But most I love the tube that spies | A |
The orbs celestial in their march | L |
That shows the comet as it whisks | M |
Its tail across the planets' disks | M |
As if to blind their blood shot eyes | A |
Or wheels so close against the sun | N |
We tremble at the thought of risks | M |
Our little spinning ball may run | N |
To pop like corn that children parch | L |
From summer something overdone | N |
And roll a cinder through the skies | A |
- | |
Grudge not to day the scanty fee | K |
To him who farms the firmament | C |
To whom the Milky Way is free | K |
Who holds the wondrous crystal key | K |
The silent Open Sesame | K |
That Science to her sons has lent | C |
Who takes his toll and lifts the bar | O |
That shuts the road to sun and star | O |
If Venus only comes to time | P |
And prophets say she must and shall | Q |
To day will hear the tinkling chime | P |
Of many a ringing silver dime | P |
For him whose optic glass supplies | A |
The crowd with astronomic eyes | A |
The Galileo of the Mall | R |
- | |
Dimly the transit morning broke | S |
The sun seemed doubting what to do | C |
As one who questions how to dress | T |
And takes his doublets from the press | T |
And halts between the old and new | C |
Please Heaven he wear his suit of blue | C |
Or don at least his ragged cloak | S |
With rents that show the azure through | C |
- | |
I go the patient crowd to join | U |
That round the tube my eyes discern | V |
The last new comer of the file | W |
And wait and wait a weary while | W |
And gape and stretch and shrug and smile | W |
For each his place must fairly earn | V |
Hindmost and foremost in his turn | V |
Till hitching onward pace by pace | X |
I gain at last the envied place | X |
And pay the white exiguous coin | U |
The sun and I are face to face | X |
He glares at me I stare at him | Y |
And lo my straining eye has found | C |
A little spot that black and round | C |
Lies near the crimsoned fire orb's rim | Y |
O blessed beauteous evening star | O |
Well named for her whom earth adores | Z |
The Lady of the dove drawn car | O |
I know thee in thy white simar | O |
But veiled in black a rayless spot | C |
Blank as a careless scribbler's blot | C |
Stripped of thy robe of silvery flame | A2 |
The stolen robe that Night restores | Z |
When Day has shut his golden doors | Z |
I see thee yet I know thee not | C |
And canst thou call thyself the same | A2 |
- | |
A black round spot and that is all | R |
And such a speck our earth would be | K |
If he who looks upon the stars | B2 |
Through the red atmosphere of Mars | B2 |
Could see our little creeping ball | R |
Across the disk of crimson crawl | R |
As I our sister planet see | K |
- | |
And art thou then a world like ours | C2 |
Flung from the orb that whirled our own | J |
A molten pebble from its zone | J |
How must thy burning sands absorb | D2 |
The fire waves of the blazing orb | D2 |
Thy chain so short thy path so near | O |
Thy flame defying creatures hear | O |
The maelstroms of the photosphere | O |
And is thy bosom decked with flowers | C2 |
That steal their bloom from scalding showers | C2 |
And hast thou cities domes and towers | C2 |
And life and love that makes it dear | O |
And death that fills thy tribes with fear | O |
- | |
- | |
Lost in my dream my spirit soars | Z |
Through paths the wandering angels know | C |
My all pervading thought explores | Z |
The azure ocean's lucent shores | Z |
I leave my mortal self below | C |
As up the star lit stairs I climb | P |
And still the widening view reveals | E2 |
In endless rounds the circling wheels | E2 |
That build the horologe of time | P |
New spheres new suns new systems gleam | F2 |
The voice no earth born echo hears | G2 |
Steals softly on my ravished ears | H2 |
I hear them singing as they shine | B |
A mortal's voice dissolves my dream | F2 |
My patient neighbor next in line | B |
Hints gently there are those who wait | C |
O guardian of the starry gate | C |
What coin shall pay this debt of mine | B |
Too slight thy claim too small the fee | K |
That bids thee turn the potent key | K |
The Tuscan's hand has placed in thine | B |
Forgive my own the small affront | C |
The insult of the proffered dime | P |
Take it O friend since this thy wont | C |
But still shall faithful memory be | K |
A bankrupt debtor unto thee | K |
And pay thee with a grateful rhyme | P |
Oliver Wendell Holmes
(1)
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