The Flaneur Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCDDBCDCDEEEDDBCBCFG HGGHIIJKKL BMNNBONOMOB LDLLLDPPQRQQBBS TDUUDDTD VWXX XWWYYVYZDDZPA2PPDDB2 A2A2DB2 SLC2C2SSL D2KKE2E2PPPD2D2D2PP A2DA2A2DQF2F2QG2H2I2 CG2CDDCLL CDQDLLQBoston Common December During The Transit Of Venus | A |
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I Love all sights of earth and skies | B |
From flowers that glow to stars that shine | C |
The comet and the penny show | D |
All curious things above below | D |
Hold each in turn my wandering eyes | B |
I claim the Christian Pagan's line | C |
Humani nihil even so | D |
And is not human life divine | C |
When soft the western breezes blow | D |
And strolling youths meet sauntering maids | E |
I love to watch the stirring trades | E |
Beneath the Vallombrosa shades | E |
Our much enduring elms bestow | D |
The vender and his rhetoric's flow | D |
That lambent stream of liquid lies | B |
The bait he dangles from his line | C |
The gudgeon and his gold washed prize | B |
I halt before the blazoned sign | C |
That bids me linger to admire | F |
The drama time can never tire | G |
The little hero of the hunch | H |
With iron arm and soul of fire | G |
And will that works his fierce desire | G |
Untamed unscared unconquered Punch | H |
My ear a pleasing torture finds | I |
In tones the withered sibyl grinds | I |
The dame sans merci's broken strain | J |
Whom I erewhile perchance have known | K |
When Orleans filled the Bourbon throne | K |
A siren singing by the Seine | L |
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But most I love the tube that spies | B |
The orbs celestial in their march | M |
That shows the comet as it whisks | N |
Its tail across the planets' disks | N |
As if to blind their blood shot eyes | B |
Or wheels so close against the sun | O |
We tremble at the thought of risks | N |
Our little spinning ball may run | O |
To pop like corn that children parch | M |
From summer something overdone | O |
And roll a cinder through the skies | B |
- | |
Grudge not to day the scanty fee | L |
To him who farms the firmament | D |
To whom the Milky Way is free | L |
Who holds the wondrous crystal key | L |
The silent Open Sesame | L |
That Science to her sons has lent | D |
Who takes his toll and lifts the bar | P |
That shuts the road to sun and star | P |
If Venus only comes to time | Q |
And prophets say she must and shall | R |
To day will hear the tinkling chime | Q |
Of many a ringing silver dime | Q |
For him whose optic glass supplies | B |
The crowd with astronomic eyes | B |
The Galileo of the Mall | S |
- | |
Dimly the transit morning broke | T |
The sun seemed doubting what to do | D |
As one who questions how to dress | U |
And takes his doublets from the press | U |
And halts between the old and new | D |
Please Heaven he wear his suit of blue | D |
Or don at least his ragged cloak | T |
With rents that show the azure through | D |
- | |
I go the patient crowd to join | V |
That round the tube my eyes discern | W |
The last new comer of the file | X |
And wait and wait a weary while | X |
- | |
And gape and stretch and shrug and smile | X |
For each his place must fairly earn | W |
Hindmost and foremost in his turn | W |
Till hitching onward pace by pace | Y |
I gain at last the envied place | Y |
And pay the white exiguous coin | V |
The sun and I are face to face | Y |
He glares at me I stare at him | Z |
And lo my straining eye has found | D |
A little spot that black and round | D |
Lies near the crimsoned fire orb's rim | Z |
O blessed beauteous evening star | P |
Well named for her whom earth adores | A2 |
The Lady of the dove drawn car | P |
I know thee in thy white simar | P |
But veiled in black a rayless spot | D |
Blank as a careless scribbler's blot | D |
Stripped of thy robe of silvery flame | B2 |
The stolen robe that Night restores | A2 |
When Day has shut his golden doors | A2 |
I see thee yet I know thee not | D |
And canst thou call thyself the same | B2 |
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A black round spot and that is all | S |
And such a speck our earth would be | L |
If he who looks upon the stars | C2 |
Through the red atmosphere of Mars | C2 |
Could see our little creeping ball | S |
Across the disk of crimson crawl | S |
As I our sister planet see | L |
- | |
And art thou then a world like ours | D2 |
Flung from the orb that whirled our own | K |
A molten pebble from its zone | K |
How must thy burning sands absorb | E2 |
The fire waves of the blazing orb | E2 |
Thy chain so short thy path so near | P |
Thy flame defying creatures hear | P |
The maelstroms of the photosphere | P |
And is thy bosom decked with flowers | D2 |
That steal their bloom from scalding showers | D2 |
And bast thou cities domes and towers | D2 |
And life and love that makes it dear | P |
And death that fills thy tribes with fear | P |
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Lost in my dream my spirit soars | A2 |
Through paths the wandering angels know | D |
My all pervading thought explores | A2 |
The azure ocean's lucent shores | A2 |
I leave my mortal self below | D |
As up the star lit stairs I climb | Q |
And still the widening view reveals | F2 |
In endless rounds the circling wheels | F2 |
That build the horologe of time | Q |
New spheres new suns new systems gleam | G2 |
The voice no earth born echo hears | H2 |
Steals softly on my ravished ears | I2 |
I hear them singing as they shine | C |
A mortal's voice dissolves my dream | G2 |
My patient neighbor next in line | C |
Hints gently there are those who wait | D |
O guardian of the starry gate | D |
What coin shall pay this debt of mine | C |
Too slight thy claim too small the fee | L |
That bids thee turn the potent key | L |
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The Tuscan's hand has placed in thine | C |
Forgive my own the small affront | D |
The insult of the proffered dime | Q |
Take it O friend since this thy wont | D |
But still shall faithful memory be | L |
A bankrupt debtor unto thee | L |
And pay thee with a grateful rhyme | Q |
Oliver Wendell Holmes
(1)
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