Cleon Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEF GHEIJDKLMENEOP EQRSTUNVWXYZA2B2C2D2 E2F2G2EHEH2I2 J2SEK2L2M2N2O2J2PP2Q 2R2J2S2Q2T2EPEU2V2TW 2EX2EY2EJZ2J2A3EEB3C 3D3T2TX2TETLETJX2ET2 EX2TTE3F3J2TJ2TF3J2T G3TH3TEESJTJ2TI3W2J3 X2LJ2E3EJ2B2EEJ2K3L3 TEM3EN3EJTTTTS2TB3TE TO3EJ2TTTT2W2 P3Q3ET2ER3SOTSGTQ3SJAs certain also of your own poets have said | A |
Acts | B |
Cleon the poet from the sprinkled isles | C |
Lily on lily that o'erlace the sea | D |
And laugh their pride when the light wave lisps Greece | E |
To Protus in his Tyranny much health | F |
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They give thy letter to me even now | G |
I read and seem as if I heard thee speak | H |
The master of thy galley still unlades | E |
Gift after gift they block my court at last | I |
And pile themselves along its portico | J |
Royal with sunset like a thought of thee | D |
And one white she slave from the group dispersed | K |
Of black and white slaves like the chequer work | L |
Pavement at once my nation's work and gift | M |
Now covered with this settle down of doves | E |
One lyric woman in her crocus vest | N |
Woven of sea wools with her two white hands | E |
Commends to me the strainer and the cup | O |
Thy lip hath bettered ere it blesses mine | P |
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Well counselled king in thy munificence | E |
For so shall men remark in such an act | Q |
Of love for him whose song gives life its joy | R |
Thy recognition of the use of life | S |
Nor call thy spirit barely adequate | T |
To help on life in straight ways broad enough | U |
For vulgar souls by ruling and the rest | N |
Thou in the daily building of thy tower | V |
Whether in fierce and sudden spasms of toil | W |
Or through dim lulls of unapparent growth | X |
Or when the general work 'mid good acclaim | Y |
Climbed with the eye to cheer the architect | Z |
Didst ne'er engage in work for mere work's sake | A2 |
Hadst ever in thy heart the luring hope | B2 |
Of some eventual rest a top of it | C2 |
Whence all the tumult of the building hushed | D2 |
Thou first of men might'st look out to the East | E2 |
The vulgar saw thy tower thou sawest the sun | F2 |
For this I promise on thy festival | G2 |
To pour libation looking o'er the sea | E |
Making this slave narrate thy fortunes speak | H |
Thy great words and describe thy royal face | E |
Wishing thee wholly where Zeus lives the most | H2 |
Within the eventual element of calm | I2 |
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Thy letter's first requirement meets me here | J2 |
It is as thou hast heard in one short life | S |
I Cleon have effected all those things | E |
Thou wonderingly dost enumerate | K2 |
That epos on thy hundred plates of gold | L2 |
Is mine and also mine the little chant | M2 |
So sure to rise from every fishing bark | N2 |
When lights at prow the seamen haul their net | O2 |
The image of the sun god on the phare | J2 |
Men turn from the sun's self to see is mine | P |
The P o'er storied its whole length | P2 |
As thou didst hear with painting is mine too | Q2 |
I know the true proportions of a man | R2 |
And woman also not observed before | J2 |
And I have written three books on the soul | S2 |
Proving absurd all written hitherto | Q2 |
And putting us to ignorance again | T2 |
For music why I have combined the moods | E |
Inventing one In brief all arts are mine | P |
Thus much the people know and recognize | E |
Throughout our seventeen islands Marvel not | U2 |
We of these latter days with greater mind | V2 |
Than our forerunners since more composite | T |
Look not so great beside their simple way | W2 |
To a judge who only sees one way at once | E |
One mind point and no other at a time | X2 |
Compares the small part of a man of us | E |
With some whole man of the heroic age | Y2 |
Great in his way not ours nor meant for ours | E |
And ours is greater had we skill to know | J |
For what we call this life of men on earth | Z2 |
This sequence of the soul's achievements here | J2 |
Being as I find much reason to conceive | A3 |
Intended to be viewed eventually | E |
As a great whole not analyzed to parts | E |
But each part having reference to all | B3 |
How shall a certain part pronounced complete | C3 |
Endure effacement by another part | D3 |
Was the thing done then what's to do again | T2 |
See in the chequered pavement opposite | T |
Suppose the artist made a perfect rhomb | X2 |
And next a lozenge then a trapezoid | T |
He did not overlay them superimpose | E |
The new upon the old and blot it out | T |
But laid them on a level in his work | L |
Making at last a picture there it lies | E |
So first the perfect separate forms were made | T |
The portions of mankind and after so | J |
Occurred the combination of the same | X2 |
For where had been a progress otherwise | E |
Mankind made up of all the single men | T2 |
In such a synthesis the labour ends | E |
Now mark me those divine men of old time | X2 |
Have reached thou sayest well each at one point | T |
The outside verge that rounds our faculty | T |
And where they reached who can do more than reach | E3 |
It takes but little water just to touch | F3 |
At some one point the inside of a sphere | J2 |
And as we turn the sphere touch all the rest | T |
In due succession but the finer air | J2 |
Which not so palpably nor obviously | T |
Though no less universally can touch | F3 |
The whole circumference of that emptied sphere | J2 |
Fills it more fully than the water did | T |
Holds thrice the weight of water in itself | G3 |
Resolved into a subtler element | T |
And yet the vulgar call the sphere first full | H3 |
Up to the visible height and after void | T |
Not knowing air's more hidden properties | E |
And thus our soul misknown cries out to Zeus | E |
To vindicate his purpose in our life | S |
Why stay we on the earth unless to grow | J |
Long since I imaged wrote the fiction out | T |
That he or other god descended here | J2 |
And once for all showed simultaneously | T |
What in its nature never can be shown | I3 |
Piecemeal or in succession showed I say | W2 |
The worth both absolute and relative | J3 |
Of all his children from the birth of time | X2 |
His instruments for all appointed work | L |
I now go on to image might we hear | J2 |
The judgment which should give the due to each | E3 |
Show where the labour lay and where the ease | E |
And prove Zeus' self the latent everywhere | J2 |
This is a dream but no dream let us hope | B2 |
That years and days the summers and the springs | E |
Follow each other with unwaning powers | E |
The grapes which dye thy wine are richer far | J2 |
Through culture than the wild wealth of the rock | K3 |
The suave plum than the savage tasted drupe | L3 |
The pastured honey bee drops choicer sweet | T |
The flowers turn double and the leaves turn flowers | E |
That young and tender crescent moon thy slave | M3 |
Sleeping above her robe as buoyed by clouds | E |
Refines upon the women of my youth | N3 |
What and the soul alone deteriorates | E |
I have not chanted verse like Homer no | J |
Nor swept string like Terpander no nor carved | T |
And painted men like Phidias and his friend | T |
I am not great as they are point by point | T |
But I have entered into sympathy | T |
With these four running these into one soul | S2 |
Who separate ignored each other's art | T |
Say is it nothing that I know them all | B3 |
The wild flower was the larger I have dashed | T |
Rose blood upon its petals pricked its cup's | E |
Honey with wine and driven its seed to fruit | T |
And show a better flower if not so large | O3 |
I stand myself Refer this to the gods | E |
Whose gift alone it is which shall I dare | J2 |
All pride apart upon the absurd pretext | T |
That such a gift by chance lay in my hand | T |
Discourse of lightly or depreciate | T |
It might have fallen to another's hand what then | T2 |
I pass too surely let at least truth stay | W2 |
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And next of what thou followest on to ask | P3 |
This being with me as I declare O king | Q3 |
My works in all these varicoloured kinds | E |
So done by me accepted so by men | T2 |
Thou askest if my soul thus in men's hearts | E |
I must not be accounted to attain | R3 |
The very crown and proper end of life | S |
Inquiring thence how now life closeth up | O |
I face death with success in my right hand | T |
Whether I fear death less than dost thyself | S |
The fortunate of men For writest thou | G |
Thou leavest much behind while I leave nought | T |
Thy life stays in the poems men shall sing | Q3 |
The pictures men shall study while my life | S |
Co | J |
Robert Browning
(1)
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