The Lost World Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCBCDEDFGDFHIHJHJKJK LKLMLJMJMJJJ JNJNJNJOJOPOPLPLQLQL QL RLRJRJJ JJSJPTPTUTUJUJVJVWVW TWTJTJXJXYXYJYJZJJJT JTA2TA2JA2JJJB2C2 JC2D2C2D2JD2JJJJWJWE 2WJLE2 E2LE2LE2LJLJF2JF2G2F 2G2F2G2 F2 JTJTH2D2H2F2I2F2JJ2F 2JJJJLJLB2JI Children's Arms | A |
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On my way home I pass a cameraman | B |
On a platform on the bumper of a car | C |
Inside which rolling and plunging a comedian | B |
Is working on one white lot I see a star | C |
Stumble to her igloo through the howling gale | D |
Of the wind machines On Melrose a dinosaur | E |
And pterodactyl with their immense pale | D |
Papier m ch smiles look over the fence | F |
Of The Lost World | G |
Whispering to myself the tale | D |
These shout done with my schoolwork I commence | F |
My real life my arsenal my workshop | H |
Opens and in impotent omnipotence | I |
I put on the helmet and the breastplate Pop | H |
Cut out and soldered for me Here is the shield | J |
I sawed from beaver board and painted here on top | H |
The bow that only Odysseus can wield | J |
And eleven vermilion ringed goose feathered arrows | K |
The twelfth was broken on the battlefield | J |
When searching among snap beans and potatoes | K |
I stepped on it Some dry weeds a dead cane | L |
Are my spears The knife on the bureau's | K |
My throwing knife the small unpainted biplane | L |
Without wheels that so often helped by human hands | M |
Has taken off from landed on the counterpane | L |
Is my Spad | J |
O dead list that misunderstands | M |
And laughs at and lies about the new live wild | J |
Loves it lists that sets upright in the sands | M |
Of age in which nothing grows where all our friends are old | J |
A few dried leaves marked THIS IS THE GREENWOOD | J |
O arms that arm for a child's wars the child | J |
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And yet they are good if anything is good | J |
Against his enemies Across the seas | N |
At the bottom of the world where Childhood | J |
Sits on its desert island with Achilles | N |
And Pitamakan the White Blackfoot | J |
In the black auditorium my heart at ease | N |
I watch the furred castaways the seniors put | J |
A play on every spring tame their wild beasts | O |
Erect their tree house Chatting over their fruit | J |
Their coconuts they relish their stately feasts | O |
The family's servant their magnanimous | P |
Master now rules them by right Nature's priests | O |
They worship at Nature's altar when with decorous | P |
Affection the Admirable Crichton | L |
Kisses a girl like a big Wendy all of us | P |
Squirm or sit up in our seats Undone | L |
When an English sail is sighted the prisoners | Q |
Escape from their Eden to the world the real one | L |
Where servants are servants masters masters | Q |
And no one's magnanimous The lights go on | L |
And we go off robbed of our fruit our furs | Q |
The island that the children ran is gone | L |
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The island sang to me Believe Believe | R |
And didn't I know a lady with a lion | L |
Each evening as the sun sank didn't I grieve | R |
To leave my tree house for reality | J |
There was nothing there for me to disbelieve | R |
At peace among my weapons I sit in my tree | J |
And feel Friday night then Saturday then Sunday | J |
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I'm dreaming of a wolf as Mama wakes me | J |
And a tall girl who is outside it's gray | J |
I can't remember I jump up and dress | S |
We eat in the lighted kitchen And what is play | J |
For me for them is habit Happiness | P |
Is a quiet presence breathless and familiar | T |
My grandfather and I sit there in oneness | P |
As the Sunset bus lit by the lavender | T |
And rose of sunrise takes us to the dark | U |
Echoing cavern where Pop a worker | T |
Works for our living As he rules a mark | U |
A short square pencil in his short square hand | J |
On a great sheet of copper I make some remark | U |
He doesn't hear In that hard maze in that land | J |
That grown men live in in the world of work | V |
He measures shears solders and I stand | J |
Empty handed watching him I wander into the murk | V |
The naked light bulbs pierce the workmen making something | W |
Say something to the boy in his white shirt I jerk | V |
As the sparks fly at me The man hammering | W |
As acid hisses and the solder turns to silver | T |
Seems to me a dwarf hammering out the Ring | W |
In the world under the world The hours blur | T |
Bored and not bored I bend things out of lead | J |
I wash my smudged hands as my grandfather | T |
Washes his black ones with their gritty soap ahead | J |
Past their time clock their pay window is the blue | X |
And gold and white of noon The sooty thread | J |
Up which the laborers feel their way into | X |
Their wives and houses is money the fact of life | Y |
The secret the grown ups share is what to do | X |
To make money The husband Adam Eve his wife | Y |
Have learned how not to have to do without | J |
Till Santa Claus brings them their Boy Scout knife | Y |
Nor do they find things in dreams carry a paper route | J |
Sell Christmas seals | Z |
Starting his Saturday his Sunday | J |
Pop tells me what I love to hear about | J |
His boyhood in Shelbyville I play | J |
What he plays hunt what he hunts remember | T |
What he remembers it seems to me I could stay | J |
In that dark forest lit by one fading ember | T |
Of his campfire forever But we're home | A2 |
I run in love to each familiar member | T |
Of this little state clustered about the Dome | A2 |
Of St Nicholas this city in which my rabbit | J |
Depends on me and I on everyone this first Rome | A2 |
Of childhood so absolute in every habit | J |
That when we hear the world our jailor say | J |
'Tell me art thou a Roman ' the time we inhabit | J |
Drops from our shoulders and we answer 'Yea | B2 |
I stand at Caesar's judgment seat I appeal | C2 |
Unto Caesar ' | - |
I wash my hands Pop gives his pay | J |
Envelope to Mama we sit down to our meal | C2 |
The phone rings Mrs Mercer wonders if I'd care | D2 |
To go to the library That would be ideal | C2 |
I say when Mama lets me I comb my hair | D2 |
And find the four books I have out The Food | J |
Of the Gods was best Liking that world where | D2 |
The children eat and grow giant and good | J |
I swear as I've often sworn 'I'll never forget | J |
What it's like when I've grown up ' A prelude | J |
By Chopin hammered note by note like alphabet | J |
Blocks comes from next door It's played with real feeling | W |
The feeling of being indoors practicing 'And yet | J |
It's not as if ' a gray electric stealing | W |
To the curb on silent wheels has come and I | E2 |
See on the back seat sight more appealing | W |
Than any human sight my own friend Lucky | J |
Half wolf half police dog And he can play the piano | L |
Play that he does that is and jump so high | E2 |
For a ball that he turns a somersault 'Hello ' | - |
I say to the lady and hug Lucky In my | E2 |
Talk with the world in which it tells me what I know | L |
And I tell it 'I know ' how strange that I | E2 |
Know nothing and yet it tells me what I know | L |
I appreciate the animals who stand by | E2 |
Purring Or else they sit and pant It's so | L |
So agreeable If only people purred and panted | J |
So now Lucky and I sit in our row | L |
Mrs Mercer in hers I take for granted | J |
The tiller by which she steers the yellow roses | F2 |
In the bud vases the whole enchanted | J |
Drawing room of our progress The glass encloses | F2 |
As glass does a womanish and childish | G2 |
And doggish universe We press our noses | F2 |
To the glass and wish the angel and devilfish | G2 |
Floating by on Vine on Sunset shut their eyes | F2 |
And press their noses to their glass and wish | G2 |
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II A Night with Lions | F2 |
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When I was twelve we'd visit my aunt's friend | J |
Who owned a lion the Metro Goldwyn Mayer | T |
Lion I'd play with him and he'd pretend | J |
To play with me I was the real player | T |
But he'd trot back and forth inside his cage | H2 |
Till he got bored I put Tawny in the prayer | D2 |
I didn't believe in not at my age | H2 |
But said still just as I did everything in fours | F2 |
And gave to Something on the average | I2 |
One cookie out of three And by my quartz my ores | F2 |
My wood with the bark on it from the Petrified | J |
Forest I put his dewclaw | J2 |
Now the lion roars | F2 |
His slow comfortable roars I lie beside | J |
My young tall brown aunt out there in the past | J |
Or future and I sleepily confide | J |
My dream discovery my breath comes fast | J |
Whenever I see someone with your skin | L |
Hear someone with your voice The lion's steadfast | J |
Roar goes on in the darkness I have been | L |
Asleep a while when I remember you | B2 |
Are you and Ta | J |
Randall Jarrell
(1)
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