Wind-clouds And Star-drifts Poem Rhyme Scheme

Recent Interactions*

This poem was read 44 times,

This poem was added to the favorite list by 0 members,

This poem was voted by 0 members.

(* Interactions only in the last 7 days)

New Poems

Threatening And Reality
by Obed Yadzo
A Guidebook To My Future Friends
by Aditi Mukherjee
Ndihamba Ndisekhona" Chant Beat: Stomp-stomp-clap, Stomp-stomp-clap
by Asher Chipu
Ledige Praatjies
by Asher Chipu
Life Is Working
by Asher Chipu
The Knocking To The Door
by Asher Chipu
Ubizo: What You Are Called To Do
by Asher Chipu
Sum Obsession
by Asher Chipu
Locust
by Asher Chipu
Eden Passing
by Asher Chipu

Popular Poets

1. Emily Dickinson(2415 poems)
2. Madison Julius Cawein(1231 poems)
3. Ella Wheeler Wilcox(1136 poems)
4. William Wordsworth(1016 poems)
5. Robert Burns(986 poems)
6. Edgar Albert Guest(945 poems)
7. Thomas Moore(849 poems)
8. Robert Service(831 poems)

FROM THE YOUNG ASTRONOMER'S POEM	A
	-
I	-
	-
AMBITION	B
	-
ANOTHER clouded night the stars are hid	C
The orb that waits my search is hid with them	D
Patience Why grudge an hour a month a year	E
To plant my ladder and to gain the round	F
That leads my footsteps to the heaven of fame	G
Where waits the wreath my sleepless midnights won	B
Not the stained laurel such as heroes wear	H
That withers when some stronger conqueror's heel	I
Treads down their shrivelling trophies in the dust	J
But the fair garland whose undying green	K
Not time can change nor wrath of gods or men	L
	-
With quickened heart beats I shall hear tongues	M
That speak my praise but better far the sense	N
That in the unshaped ages buried deep	O
In the dark mines of unaccomplished time	P
Yet to be stamped with morning's royal die	-
And coined in golden days in those dim years	Q
I shall be reckoned with the undying dead	R
My name emblazoned on the fiery arch	S
Unfading till the stars themselves shall fade	T
Then as they call the roll of shining worlds	U
Sages of race unborn in accents new	V
Shall count me with the Olympian ones of old	W
Whose glories kindle through the midnight sky	-
Here glows the God of Battles this recalls	X
The Lord of Ocean and yon far off sphere	E
The Sire of Him who gave his ancient name	G
To the dim planet with the wondrous rings	Y
Here flames the Queen of Beauty's silver lamp	Z
And there the moon girt orb of mighty Jove	A2
But this unseen through all earth's ions past	B2
A youth who watched beneath the western star	C2
Sought in the darkness found and shewed to men	L
Linked with his name thenceforth and evermore	D2
So shall that name be syllabled anew	V
In all the tongues of all the tribes of men	L
I that have been through immemorial years	Q
Dust in the dust of my forgotten time	P
Shall live in accents shaped of blood warm breath	E2
Yea rise in mortal semblance newly born	F2
In shining stone in undecaying bronze	G2
And stand on high and look serenely down	H2
On the new race that calls the earth its own	I2
	-
Is this a cloud that blown athwart my soul	J2
Wears a false seeming of the pearly stain	K2
Where worlds beyond the world their mingling rays	L2
Blend in soft white a cloud that born of earth	M2
Would cheat the soul that looks for light from heaven	B
Must every coral insect leave his sign	N2
On each poor grain he lent to build the reef	A2
As Babel's builders stamped their sunburnt clay	O2
Or deem his patient service all in vain	K2
What if another sit beneath the shade	T
Of the broad elm I planted by the way	O2
What if another heed the beacon light	P2
I set upon the rock that wrecked my keel	I
Have I not done my task and served my kind	Q2
Nay rather act thy part unnamed unknown	I2
And let Fame blow her trumpet through the world	R2
With noisy wind to swell a fool's renown	H2
Joined with some truth he stumbled blindly o'er	S2
Or coupled with some single shining deed	T2
That in the great account of all his days	L2
Will stand alone upon the bankrupt sheet	U2
His pitying angel shows the clerk of Heaven	B
The noblest service comes from nameless hands	V2
And the best servant does his work unseen	K
Who found the seeds of fire and made them shoot	W2
Fed by his breath in buds and flowers of flame	G
Who forged in roaring flames the ponderous stone	I2
And shaped the moulded metal to his need	T2
Who gave the dragging car its rolling wheel	I
And tamed the steed that whirls its circling round	F
All these have left their work and not their names	X2
Why should I murmur at a fate like theirs	Y2
This is the heavenly light the pearly stain	K2
Was but a wind cloud drifting o'er the stars	Z2
	-
II	-
	-
REGRETS	A3
	-
BRIEF glimpses of the bright celestial spheres	Q
False lights false shadows vague uncertain gleams	B3
Pale vaporous mists wan streaks of lurid flame	G
The climbing of the upward sailing cloud	C3
The sinking of the downward falling star	C2
All these are pictures of the changing moods	D3
Borne through the midnight stillness of my soul	J2
	-
Here am I bound upon this pillared rock	E3
Prey to the vulture of a vast desire	S2
That feeds upon my life I burst my bands	V2
And steal a moment's freedom from the beak	F3
The clinging talons and the shadowing plumes	G3
Then comes the false enchantress with her song	H3
	-
'Thou wouldst not lay thy forehead in the dust	J
Like the base herd that feeds and breeds and dies	I3
Lo the fair garlands that I weave for thee	J3
Unchanging as the belt Orion wears	Y2
Bright as the jewels of the seven starred Crown	H2
The spangled stream of Berenice's hair '	-
And so she twines the fetters with the flowers	K3
Around my yielding limbs and the fierce bird	L3
Stoops to his quarry then to feed his rage	M3
Of ravening hunger I must drain my blood	N3
And let the dew drenched poison breeding night	P2
Steal all the freshness from my fading cheek	F3
And leave its shadows round my caverned eyes	I3
All for a line in some unheeded scroll	J2
All for a stone that tells to gaping clowns	O3
'Here lies a restless wretch beneath a clod	P2
Where squats the jealous nightmare men call	P3
Fame '	-
	-
I marvel not at him who scorns his kind	P2
And thinks not sadly of the time foretold	P2
When the old hulk we tread shall be a wreck	Q3
A slag a cinder drifting through the sky	-
Without its crew of fools We live too long	H3
And even so are not content to die	-
But load the mould that covers up our bones	R3
With stones that stand like beggars by the road	P2
And show death's grievous wound and ask for tears	Y2
Write our great books to teach men who we are	C2
Sing our fine songs that tell in artful phrase	L2
The secrets of our lives and plead and pray	O2
For alms of memory with the after time	P
Those few swift seasons while the earth shall wear	H
Its leafy summers ere its core grows cold	P2
And the moist life of all that breathes shall die	-
Or as the new born seer perchance more wise	I3
Would have us deem before its growing mass	S3
Pelted with star dust stoned with meteor balls	X
Heats like a hammered anvil till at last	P2
Man and his works and all that stirred itself	A2
Of its own motion in the fiery glow	T3
Turns to a flaming vapor and our orb	U3
Shines a new sun for earths that shall be born	F2
	-
I am as old as Egypt to myself	A2
Brother to them that squared the pyramids	V3
By the same stars I watch I read the page	M3
Where every letter is a glittering world	P2
With them who looked from Shinar's clay built towers	K3
Ere yet the wanderer of the Midland sea	J3
Had missed the fallen sister of the seven	B
I dwell in spaces vague remote unknown	I2
Save to the silent few who leaving earth	M2
Quit all communion with their living time	P
I lose myself in that ethereal void	P2
Till I have tired my wings and long to fill	W3
My breast with denser air to stand to walk	X3
With eyes not raised above my fellow men	L
Sick of my unwalled solitary realm	Y3
I ask to change the myriad lifeless worlds	U
I visit as mine own for one poor patch	Z3
Of this dull spheroid and a little breath	E2
To shape in word or deed to serve my kind	P2
Was ever giant's dungeon dug so deep	O
Was ever tyrant's fetter forged so strong	H3
Was e'er such deadly poison in the draught	P2
The false wife mingles for the trusting fool	A4
As he whose willing victim is himself	A2
Digs forges mingles for his captive soul	J2
	-
III	-
	-
SYMPATHIES	B4
	-
THE snows that glittered on the disk of Mars	Z2
Have melted and the planet's fiery orb	U3
Rolls in the crimson summer of its year	E
But what to me the summer or the snow	T3
Of worlds that throb with life in forms unknown	I2
If life indeed be theirs I heed not these	B4
My heart is simply human all my care	H
For them whose dust is fashioned like mine own	I2
These ache with cold and hunger live in pain	K2
And shake with fear of worlds more full of woe	T3
There may be others worthier of my love	A2
But such I know not save through these I know	T3
	-
There are two veils of language hid beneath	C4
Whose sheltering folds we dare to be ourselves	D4
And not that other self which nods and smiles	E4
And babbles in our name the one is Prayer	H
Lending its licensed freedom to the tongue	F4
That tells our sorrows and our sin	G4

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Wind-clouds And Star-drifts Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

About Wind-clouds And Star-drifts

Write your comment about Wind-clouds And Star-drifts poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Recent Interactions*

New Poems

Popular Poets