Easter-day Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEEFFGGHHIJKK LLMNOOPP QRRAQSSTTQAUUVVWWXXV V QXXXXXXYYZZ QYYA2A2YYB2C2XXXXXXD 2D2XXYYYYXXYYYYVVYYY YX XXXE2E2XXYYXXF2G2H2I 2XXD2D2XXJ2J2QQK2K2X X QXXXXXXXQQQL2L2YYPI2 XXXXXXVVXXXXYYYYXD2Y YM2M2XXXXYYVVN2N2YY QXXXXXXD2D2H2H2YYD2D 2D2D2YYXXXXYYYYYYVVX XXXVVD2D2YYXXXXXHOW very hard it is to be | A |
A Christian Hard for you and me | A |
Not the mere task of making real | B |
That duty up to its ideal | B |
Effecting thus complete and whole | C |
A purpose or the human soul | C |
For that is always hard to do | D |
But hard I mean for me and you | D |
To realise it more or less | E |
With even the moderate success | E |
Which commonly repays our strife | F |
To carry out the aims of life | F |
This aim is greater you may say | G |
And so more arduous every way | G |
But the importance of the fruits | H |
Still proves to man in all pursuits | H |
Proportional encouragement | I |
Then what if it be God s intent | J |
That labour to this one result | K |
Shall seem unduly difficult | K |
Ah that s a question in the dark | L |
And the sole thing that I remark | L |
Upon the difficulty this | M |
We do not see it where it is | N |
At the beginning of the race | O |
As we proceed it shifts its place | O |
And where we looked for palms to fall | P |
We find the tug s to come that s all | P |
- | |
II | Q |
At first you say The whole or chief | R |
Of difficulties is Belief | R |
Could I believe once thoroughly | A |
The rest were simple What Am I | Q |
An idiot do you think A beast | S |
Prove to me only that the least | S |
Command of God is God s indeed | T |
And what injunction shall I need | T |
To pay obedience Death so nigh | Q |
When time must end eternity | A |
Begin and cannot I compute | U |
Weigh loss and gain together suit | U |
My actions to the balance drawn | V |
And give my body to be sawn | V |
Asunder hacked in pieces tied | W |
To horses stoned burned crucified | W |
Like any martyr of the list | X |
How gladly if I made acquist | X |
Through the brief minutes fierce annoy | V |
Of God s eternity of joy | V |
- | |
III | Q |
And certainly you name the point | X |
Whereon all turns for could you joint | X |
This flexile finite life once tight | X |
Into the fixed and infinite | X |
You safe inside would spurn what s out | X |
With carelessness enough no doubt | X |
Would spurn mere life but where time brings | Y |
To their next stage your reasonings | Y |
Your eyes late wide begin to wink | Z |
Nor see the path so well I think | Z |
- | |
IV | Q |
You say Faith may be one agrees | Y |
A touchstone for God s purposes | Y |
Even as ourselves conceive of them | A2 |
Could He acquit us or condemn | A2 |
For holding what no hand can loose | Y |
Rejecting when we can t but choose | Y |
As well award the victor s wreath | B2 |
To whosoever should take breath | C2 |
Duly each minute while he lived | X |
Grant Heaven because a man contrived | X |
To see the sunlight every day | X |
He walked forth on the public way | X |
You must mix some uncertainty | X |
With faith if you would have faith be | X |
Why what but faith do we abhor | D2 |
And idolize each other for | D2 |
Faith in our evil or our good | X |
Which is or is not understood | X |
Aright by those we love or those | Y |
We hate thence called our friends or foes | Y |
Your mistress saw your spirit s grace | Y |
When turning from the ugly face | Y |
I found belief in it too hard | X |
And both of us have our reward | X |
Yet here a doubt peeps well for us | Y |
Weak beings to go using thus | Y |
A touchstone for our little ends | Y |
And try with faith the foes and friends | Y |
But God bethink you I would fain | V |
Conceive of the Creator s reign | V |
As based upon exacter laws | Y |
Than creatures build by with applause | Y |
In all God s acts as Plato cries | Y |
He doth He should geometrise | Y |
Whence I desiderate | X |
- | |
V | X |
I see | X |
You would grow smoothly as a tree | X |
Soar heavenward straightly up like fire | E2 |
God bless you there s your world entire | E2 |
Needing no faith if you think fit | X |
Go there walk up and down in it | X |
The whole creation travails groans | Y |
Contrive your music from its moans | Y |
Without or let or hindrance friend | X |
That s an old story and its end | X |
As old you come back be sincere | F2 |
With every question you put here | G2 |
Here where there once was and is still | H2 |
We think a living oracle | I2 |
Whose answers you stood carping at | X |
This time flung back unanswered flat | X |
Besides perhaps as many more | D2 |
As those that drove you out before | D2 |
Now added where was little need | X |
Questions impossible indeed | X |
To us who sate still all and each | J2 |
Persuaded that our earth had speech | J2 |
Of God s writ down no matter if | Q |
In cursive type or hieroglyph | Q |
Which one fact frees us from the yoke | K2 |
Of guessing why He never spoke | K2 |
You come back in no better plight | X |
Than when you left us am I right | X |
- | |
VI | Q |
So the old process I conclude | X |
Goes on the reasoning s pursued | X |
Further You own Tis well averred | X |
A scientific faith s absurd | X |
Frustrates the very end twas meant | X |
To serve so I would rest content | X |
With a mere probability | X |
But probable the chance must lie | Q |
Clear on one side lie all in rough | Q |
So long as there is just enough | Q |
To pin my faith to though it hap | L2 |
Only at points from gap to gap | L2 |
One hangs up a huge curtain so | Y |
Grandly nor seeks to have it go | Y |
Foldless and flat along the wall | P |
What care I that some interval | I2 |
Of life less plainly might depend | X |
On God I d hang there to the end | X |
And thus I should not find it hard | X |
To be a Christian and debarred | X |
From trailing on the earth till furled | X |
Away by death Renounce the world | X |
Were that a mighty hardship Plan | V |
A pleasant life and straight some man | V |
Beside you with if he thought fit | X |
Abundant means to compass it | X |
Shall turn deliberate aside | X |
To try and live as if you tried | X |
You clearly might yet most despise | Y |
One friend of mine wears out his eyes | Y |
Slighting the stupid joys of sense | Y |
In patient hope that ten years hence | Y |
Somewhat completer he may see | X |
His list of lepidopter | D2 |
While just the other who most laughs | Y |
At him above all epitaphs | Y |
Aspires to have his tomb describe | M2 |
Himself as Sole among the tribe | M2 |
Of snuffbox fanciers who possessed | X |
A Grignon with the Regent s crest | X |
So that subduing as you want | X |
Whatever stands predominant | X |
Among my earthly appetites | Y |
For tastes and smells and sounds and sights | Y |
I shall be doing that alone | V |
To gain a palm branch and a throne | V |
Which fifty people undertake | N2 |
To do and gladly for the sake | N2 |
Of giving a Semitic guess | Y |
Or playing pawns at blindfold chess | Y |
- | |
VII | Q |
Good and the next thing is look round | X |
For evidence enough Tis found | X |
No doubt as is your sort of mind | X |
So is your sort of search you ll find | X |
What you desire and that s to be | X |
A Christian what says History | X |
How comforting a point it were | D2 |
To find some mummy scrap declare | D2 |
There lived a Moses Better still | H2 |
Prove Jonah s whale translatable | H2 |
Into some quicksand of the seas | Y |
Isle cavern rock or what you please | Y |
That Faith might clap her wings and crow | D2 |
From such an eminence Or no | D2 |
The Human Heart s best you prefer | D2 |
Making that prove the minister | D2 |
To truth you probe its wants and needs | Y |
And hopes and fears then try what creeds | Y |
Meet these most aptly resolute | X |
That Faith plucks such substantial fruit | X |
Wherever these two correspond | X |
She little needs to look beyond | X |
To puzzle out what Orpheus was | Y |
Or Dionysius Zagrias | Y |
You ll find sufficient as I say | Y |
To satisfy you either way | Y |
You wanted to believe your pains | Y |
Are crowned you do and what remains | Y |
Renounce the world Ah were it done | V |
By merely cutting one by one | V |
Your limbs off with your wise head last | X |
How easy were it how soon past | X |
If once in the believing mood | X |
Such is man s usual gratitude | X |
Such thanks to God do we return | V |
For not exacting that we spurn | V |
A single gift of life forego | D2 |
One real gain only taste them so | D2 |
With gravity and temperance | Y |
That those mild virtues may enhance | Y |
Such pleasures rather than abstract | X |
Last spice of which will be the fact | X |
Of love discerned in every gift | X |
While when the scene of life shall shift | X |
And the gay heart be taught to | X |
Robert Browning
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