Wind-clouds And Star-drifts Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A B CDEFGBHIJKL MNOP QRSTUVW XEGYZA2B2C2LD2VLQPE2 F2G2H2I2 J2K2L2M2BN2A2O2K2TO2 P2IQ2I2R2H2S2T2L2U2B V2KW2GI2T2IFX2Y2K2Z2 A3 QB3GC3C2D3J2 E3S2V2F3G3H3 JI3J3Y2H2 K3L3M3N3P2F3I3J2O3P2 P3 P2P2Q3 H3 R3P2Y2C2L2O2PHP2 I3S3XP2A2T3U3F2 A2V3M3P2K3J3BI2M2PP2 W3X3LY3UZ3E2P2OH3P2A 4A2J2 B4 Z2U3ET3I2B4HI2K2T3A2 T3 C4D4E4HF4G4FROM THE YOUNG ASTRONOMER'S POEM | A |
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I | - |
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AMBITION | B |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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II | - |
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REGRETS | A3 |
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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 |
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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 |
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'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 ' | - |
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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 |
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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 |
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III | - |
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SYMPATHIES | B4 |
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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 |
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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
(1)
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