The Harp Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDBBEFGHIIJKIKII ILJLMILINIIOOPP QQ RRR STOOUUIVRRWCRXXYZA2C CB2B2C2C2OOD2D2OOIIE 2E2F2F2F2F2TTIIIIPPR RF2F2IIG2G2H2H2I2D2C 2C2TTRRPP RROOIIIIJ2RRK2K2J2F2 F2L2L2M2M2M2One musician is sure | A |
His wisdom will not fail | B |
He has not tasted wine impure | A |
Nor bent to passion frail | B |
Age cannot cloud his memory | C |
Nor grief untune his voice | D |
Ranging down the ruled scale | B |
From tone of joy to inward wail | B |
Tempering the pitch of all | E |
In his windy cave | F |
He all the fables knows | G |
And in their causes tells | H |
Knows Nature's rarest moods | I |
Ever on her secret broods | I |
The Muse of men is coy | J |
Oft courted will not come | K |
In palaces and market squares | I |
Entreated she is dumb | K |
But my minstrel knows and tells | I |
The counsel of the gods | I |
Knows of Holy Book the spells | I |
Knows the law of Night and Day | L |
And the heart of girl and boy | J |
The tragic and the gay | L |
And what is writ on Table Round | M |
Of Arthur and his peers | I |
What sea and land discoursing say | L |
In sidereal years | I |
He renders all his lore | N |
In numbers wild as dreams | I |
Modulating all extremes | I |
What the spangled meadow saith | O |
To the children who have faith | O |
Only to children children sing | P |
Only to youth will spring be spring | P |
- | |
Who is the Bard thus magnified | Q |
When did he sing and where abide | Q |
- | |
Chief of song where poets feast | R |
Is the wind harp which thou seest | R |
In the casement at my side | R |
- | |
Aeolian harp | S |
How strangely wise thy strain | T |
Gay for youth gay for youth | O |
Sweet is art but sweeter truth | O |
In the hall at summer eve | U |
Fate and Beauty skilled to weave | U |
From the eager opening strings | I |
Rung loud and bold the song | V |
Who but loved the wind harp's note | R |
How should not the poet doat | R |
On its mystic tongue | W |
With its primeval memory | C |
Reporting what old minstrels told | R |
Of Merlin locked the harp within | X |
Merlin paying the pain of sin | X |
Pent in a dungeon made of air | Y |
And some attain his voice to hear | Z |
Words of pain and cries of fear | A2 |
But pillowed all on melody | C |
As fits the griefs of bards to be | C |
And what if that all echoing shell | B2 |
Which thus the buried Past can tell | B2 |
Should rive the Future and reveal | C2 |
What his dread folds would fain conceal | C2 |
It shares the secret of the earth | O |
And of the kinds that owe her birth | O |
Speaks not of self that mystic tone | D2 |
But of the Overgods alone | D2 |
It trembles to the cosmic breath | O |
As it heareth so it saith | O |
Obeying meek the primal Cause | I |
It is the tongue of mundane laws | I |
And this at least I dare affirm | E2 |
Since genius too has bound and term | E2 |
There is no bard in all the choir | F2 |
Not Homer's self the poet sire | F2 |
Wise Milton's odes of pensive pleasure | F2 |
Or Shakspeare whom no mind can measure | F2 |
Nor Collins' verse of tender pain | T |
Nor Byron's clarion of disdain | T |
Scott the delight of generous boys | I |
Or Wordsworth Pan's recording voice | I |
Not one of all can put in verse | I |
Or to this presence could rehearse | I |
The sights and voices ravishing | P |
The boy knew on the hills in spring | P |
When pacing through the oaks he heard | R |
Sharp queries of the sentry bird | R |
The heavy grouse's sudden whir | F2 |
The rattle of the kingfisher | F2 |
Saw bonfires of the harlot flies | I |
In the lowland when day dies | I |
Or marked benighted and forlorn | G2 |
The first far signal fire of morn | G2 |
These syllables that Nature spoke | H2 |
And the thoughts that in him woke | H2 |
Can adequately utter none | I2 |
Save to his ear the wind harp lone | D2 |
Therein I hear the Parcae reel | C2 |
The threads of man at their humming wheel | C2 |
The threads of life and power and pain | T |
So sweet and mournful falls the strain | T |
And best can teach its Delphian chord | R |
How Nature to the soul is moored | R |
If once again that silent string | P |
As erst it wont would thrill and ring | P |
- | |
Not long ago at eventide | R |
It seemed so listening at my side | R |
A window rose and to say sooth | O |
I looked forth on the fields of youth | O |
I saw fair boys bestriding steeds | I |
I knew their forms in fancy weeds | I |
Long long concealed by sundering fates | I |
Mates of my youth yet not my mates | I |
Stronger and bolder far than I | J2 |
With grace with genius well attired | R |
And then as now from far admired | R |
Followed with love | K2 |
They knew not of | K2 |
With passion cold and shy | J2 |
O joy for what recoveries rare | F2 |
Renewed I breathe Elysian air | F2 |
See youth's glad mates in earliest bloom | L2 |
Break not my dream obtrusive tomb | L2 |
Or teach thou Spring the grand recoil | M2 |
Of life resurgent from the soil | M2 |
Wherein was dropped the mortal spoil | M2 |
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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