A Song Of Honour Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABCDDDCEEECFFCGGHII HJKLMNLOOPQQPRRSTQSU UUVOOHQQHJJWXXWYYYWD DZEEZA2A2ZB2B2B2FPPF C2D2C2C2C2D2QQD2E2EE 2EF2F2EIIG2IIIG2FFFH 2WWI2J2K2K2L2M2M2L2N 2O2N2N2N2O2E2E2IP2P2 IQ2R2S2S2R2T2T2T2R2B 2FB2B2B2FGU2GFKKKFV2 V2W2X2X2W2Y2Y2UZ2Z2U A3A3A3A3B3C3C3ISVSFD 3D3D3FWWUE3UWUF3F3F3 UG3G3O2H3I3O2EEEEO2Z ZZHQQHC2C2HJ3J3HE2E2 E2E2HI climbed a hill as light fell short | A |
And rooks came home in scramble sort | A |
And filled the trees and flapped and fought | B |
And sang themselves to sleep | C |
An owl from nowhere with no sound | D |
Swung by and soon was nowhere found | D |
I heard him calling half way round | D |
Holloing loud and deep | C |
A pair of stars faint pins of light | E |
Then many a star sailed into sight | E |
And all the stars the flower of night | E |
Were round me at a leap | C |
To tell how still the valleys lay | F |
I heard a watchdog miles away | F |
And bells of distant sheep | C |
I heard no sound of bird or bell | G |
The mastiff in a slumber fell | G |
I stared into the sky | H |
As wondering men have always done | I |
Since beauty and the stars were one | I |
Though none so hard as I | H |
It seemed so still the valleys were | J |
As if the whole world knelt at prayer | K |
Save me and me alone | L |
So pure and wide that silence was | M |
I feared to bend a blade of grass | N |
And there I stood like stone | L |
There sharp and sudden there I heard | O |
Ah some wild lovesick singing bird | O |
Woke singing in the trees | P |
The nightingale and babble wren | Q |
Were in the English greenwood then | Q |
And you heard one of these | P |
The babble wren and nightingale | R |
Sang in the Abyssinian vale | R |
That season of the year | S |
Yet true enough I heard them plain | T |
I heard them both again again | Q |
As sharp and sweet and clear | S |
As if the Abyssinian tree | U |
Had thrust a bough across the sea | U |
Had thrust a bough across to me | U |
With music for my ear | V |
I heard them both and oh I heard | O |
The song of every singing bird | O |
That sings beneath the sky | H |
And with the song of lark and wren | Q |
The song of mountains moths and men | Q |
And seas and rainbows vie | H |
I heard the universal choir | J |
The Sons of Light exalt their Sire | J |
With universal song | W |
Earth's lowliest and loudest notes | X |
Her million times ten million throats | X |
Exalt Him loud and long | W |
And lips and lungs and tongues of Grace | Y |
From every part and every place | Y |
Within the shining of His face | Y |
The universal throng | W |
I heard the hymn of being sound | D |
From every well of honour found | D |
In human sense and soul | Z |
The song of poets when they write | E |
The testament of Beauty sprite | E |
Upon a flying scroll | Z |
The song of painters when they take | A2 |
A burning brush for Beauty's sake | A2 |
And limn her features whole | Z |
The song of men divinely wise | B2 |
Who look and see in starry skies | B2 |
Not stars so much as robins' eyes | B2 |
And when these pale away | F |
Hear flocks of shiny pleiades | P |
Among the plums and apple trees | P |
Sing in the summer day | F |
The song of all both high and low | C2 |
To some blest vision true | D2 |
The song of beggars when they throw | C2 |
The crust of pity all men owe | C2 |
To hungry sparrows in the snow | C2 |
Old beggars hungry too | D2 |
The song of kings of kingdoms when | Q |
They rise about their fortune Men | Q |
And crown themselves anew | D2 |
The song of courage heart and will | E2 |
And gladness in a fight | E |
Of men who face a hopeless hill | E2 |
With sparking and delight | E |
The bells and bells of song that ring | F2 |
Round banners of a cause or king | F2 |
From armies bleeding white | E |
The song of sailors every one | I |
When monstrous tide and tempest run | I |
At ships like bulls at red | G2 |
When stately ships are twirled and spun | I |
Like whipping tops and help there's none | I |
And mighty ships ten thousand ton | I |
Go down like lumps of lead | G2 |
And song of fighters stern as they | F |
At odds with fortune night and day | F |
Crammed up in cities grim and grey | F |
As thick as bees in hives | H2 |
Hosannas of a lowly throng | W |
Who sing unconscious of their song | W |
Whose lips are in their lives | I2 |
And song of some at holy war | J2 |
With spells and ghouls more dread by far | K2 |
Than deadly seas and cities are | K2 |
Or hordes of quarrelling kings | L2 |
The song of fighters great and small | M2 |
The song of pretty fighters all | M2 |
And high heroic things | L2 |
The song of lovers who knows how | N2 |
Twitched up from place and time | O2 |
Upon a sigh a blush a vow | N2 |
A curve or hue of cheek or brow | N2 |
Borne up and off from here and now | N2 |
Into the void sublime | O2 |
And crying loves and passions still | E2 |
In every key from soft to shrill | E2 |
And numbers never done | I |
Dog loyalties to faith and friend | P2 |
And loves like Ruth's of old no end | P2 |
And intermission none | I |
And burst on burst for beauty and | Q2 |
For numbers not behind | R2 |
From men whose love of motherland | S2 |
Is like a dog's for one dear hand | S2 |
Sole selfless boundless blind | R2 |
And song of some with hearts beside | T2 |
For men and sorrows far and wide | T2 |
Who watch the world with pity and pride | T2 |
And warm to all mankind | R2 |
And endless joyous music rise | B2 |
From children at their play | F |
And endless soaring lullabies | B2 |
From happy happy mothers' eyes | B2 |
And answering crows and baby cries | B2 |
How many who shall say | F |
And many a song as wondrous well | G |
With pangs and sweets intolerable | U2 |
From lonely hearths too grey to tell | G |
God knows how utter grey | F |
And song from many a house of care | K |
When pain has forced a footing there | K |
And there's a Darkness on the stair | K |
Will not be turned away | F |
And song that song whose singers come | V2 |
With old kind tales of pity from | V2 |
The Great Compassion's lips | W2 |
That makes the bells of Heaven to peal | X2 |
Round pillows frosty with the feel | X2 |
Of Death's cold finger tips | W2 |
The song of men all sorts and kinds | Y2 |
As many tempers moods and minds | Y2 |
As leaves are on a tree | U |
As many faiths and castes and creeds | Z2 |
As many human bloods and breeds | Z2 |
As in the world may be | U |
The song of each and all who gaze | A3 |
On Beauty in her naked blaze | A3 |
Or see her dimly in a haze | A3 |
Or get her light in fitful rays | A3 |
And tiniest needles even | B3 |
The song of all not wholly dark | C3 |
Not wholly sink in stupor stark | C3 |
Too deep for groping Heaven | I |
And alleluias sweet and clear | S |
And wild with beauty men mishear | V |
From choirs of song as near and dear | S |
To Paradise as they | F |
The everlasting pipe and flute | D3 |
Of wind and sea and bird and brute | D3 |
And lips deaf men imagine mute | D3 |
In woods and stone and clay | F |
The music of a lion strong | W |
That shakes a hill a whole night long | W |
A hill as loud as he | U |
The twitter of a mouse among | E3 |
Melodious greenery | U |
The ruby's and the rainbow's song | W |
The nightingale's all three | U |
The song of life that wells and flows | F3 |
From every leopard lark and rose | F3 |
And everything that gleams or goes | F3 |
Lack lustre in the sea | U |
I heard it all each every note | G3 |
Of every lung and tongue and throat | G3 |
Ay every rhythm and rhyme | O2 |
Of everything that lives and loves | H3 |
And upward ever upward moves | I3 |
From lowly to sublime | O2 |
Earth's multitudinous Sons of Light | E |
I heard them lift their lyric might | E |
With each and every chanting sprite | E |
That lit the sky that wondrous night | E |
As far as eye could climb | O2 |
I heard it all I heard the whole | Z |
Harmonious hymn of being roll | Z |
Up through the chapel of my soul | Z |
And at the altar die | H |
And in the awful quiet then | Q |
Myself I heard Amen Amen | Q |
Amen I heard me cry | H |
I heard it all and then although | C2 |
I caught my flying senses Oh | C2 |
A dizzy man was I | H |
I stood and stared the sky was lit | J3 |
The sky was stars all over it | J3 |
I stood I knew not why | H |
Without a wish without a will | E2 |
I stood upon that silent hill | E2 |
And stared into the sky until | E2 |
My eyes were blind with stars and still | E2 |
I stared into the sky | H |
Ralph Hodgson
(1)
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