The Secret Of The Stars - From Readings Over The Teacups - Five Stories And A Sequel Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCC DEFFGGHHIIJJKKLLCC MMNNOOPPQQRRSSTTUUVV WWXXCCYYTTZZA2A2B2B2 C2MQQZZD2D2E2E2JJZZH HF2F2 B2B2G2G2ZZH2I2J2J2CC K2K2L2L2RRTTM2M2N2N2 O2O2Is man's the only throbbing heart that hides | A |
The silent spring that feeds its whispering tides | A |
Speak from thy caverns mystery breeding Earth | B |
Tell the half hinted story of thy birth | B |
And calm the noisy champions who have thrown | C |
The book of types against the book of stone | C |
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Have ye not secrets ye refulgent spheres | D |
No sleepless listener of the starlight hears | E |
In vain the sweeping equatorial pries | F |
Through every world sown corner of the skies | F |
To the far orb that so remotely strays | G |
Our midnight darkness is its noonday blaze | G |
In vain the climbing soul of creeping man | H |
Metes out the heavenly concave with a span | H |
Tracks into space the long lost meteor's trail | I |
And weighs an unseen planet in the scale | I |
Still o'er their doubts the wan eyed watchers sigh | J |
And Science lifts her still unanswered cry | J |
Are all these worlds that speed their circling flight | K |
Dumb vacant soulless baubles of the night | K |
Warmed with God's smile and wafted by his breath | L |
To weave in ceaseless round the dance of Death | L |
Or rolls a sphere in each expanding zone | C |
Crowned with a life as varied as our own | C |
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Maker of earth and stars If thou hast taught | M |
By what thy voice hath spoke thy hand hath wrought | M |
By all that Science proves or guesses true | N |
More than thy poet dreamed thy prophet knew | N |
The heavens still bow in darkness at thy feet | O |
And shadows veil thy cloud pavilioned seat | O |
Not for ourselves we ask thee to reveal | P |
One awful word beneath the future's seal | P |
What thou shalt tell us grant us strength to bear | Q |
What thou withholdest is thy single care | Q |
Not for ourselves the present clings too fast | R |
Moored to the mighty anchors of the past | R |
But when with angry snap some cable parts | S |
The sound re echoing in our startled hearts | S |
When through the wall that clasps the harbor round | T |
And shuts the raving ocean from its bound | T |
Shattered and rent by sacrilegious hands | U |
The first mad billow leaps upon the sands | U |
Then to the Future's awful page we turn | V |
And what we question hardly dare to learn | V |
Still let us hope for while we seem to tread | W |
The time worn pathway of the nations dead | W |
Though Sparta laughs at all our warlike deeds | X |
And buried Athens claims our stolen creeds | X |
Though Rome a spectre on her broken throne | C |
Beholds our eagle and recalls her own | C |
Though England fling her pennons on the breeze | Y |
And reign before us Mistress of the seas | Y |
While calm eyed History tracks us circling round | T |
Fate's iron pillar where they all were bound | T |
Still in our path a larger curve she finds | Z |
The spiral widening as the chain unwinds | Z |
Still sees new beacons crowned with brighter flame | A2 |
Than the old watch fires like but not the same | A2 |
No shameless haste shall spot with bandit crime | B2 |
Our destined empire snatched before its time | B2 |
Wait wait undoubting for the winds have caught | C2 |
From our bold speech the heritage of thought | M |
No marble form that sculptured truth can wear | Q |
Vies with the image shaped in viewless air | Q |
And thought unfettered grows through speech to deeds | Z |
As the broad forest marches in its seeds | Z |
What though we perish ere the day is won | D2 |
Enough to see its glorious work begun | D2 |
The thistle falls before a trampling clown | E2 |
But who can chain the flying thistle down | E2 |
Wait while the fiery seeds of freedom fly | J |
The prairie blazes when the grass is dry | J |
What arms might ravish leave to peaceful arts | Z |
Wisdom and love shall win the roughest hearts | Z |
So shall the angel who has closed for man | H |
The blissful garden since his woes began | H |
Swing wide the golden portals of the West | F2 |
And Eden's secret stand at length confessed | F2 |
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The reader paused in truth he thought it time | B2 |
Some threatening signs accused the drowsy rhyme | B2 |
The Mistress nodded the Professor dozed | G2 |
The two Annexes sat with eyelids closed | G2 |
Not sleeping no But when one shuts one's eyes | Z |
That one hears better no one sure denies | Z |
The Doctor whispered in Delilah's ear | H2 |
Or seemed to whisper for their heads drew near | I2 |
Not all the owner's efforts could restrain | J2 |
The wild vagaries of the squinting brain | J2 |
Last of the listeners Number Five alone | C |
The patient reader still could call his own | C |
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Teacups arouse 'T was thus the spell I broke | K2 |
The drowsy started and the slumberers woke | K2 |
The sleep I promised you have now enjoyed | L2 |
Due to your hour of labor well employed | L2 |
Swiftly the busy moments have been passed | R |
This our first 'Teacups ' must not be our last | R |
Here on this spot now consecrated ground | T |
The Order of 'The Teacups' let us found | T |
By winter's fireside and in summer's bower | M2 |
Still shall it claim its ever welcome hour | M2 |
In distant regions where our feet may roam | N2 |
The magic teapot find or make a home | N2 |
Long may its floods their bright infusion pour | O2 |
Till time and teacups both shall be no more | O2 |
Oliver Wendell Holmes
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