The Star Splitter Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGCHCIJKDDLMCL DLN OPLDLQRLLSF LS TUVWXYZDLLA2B2C2D2E2 F2G2LH2LYLI2LH2F J2K2L2FLLLM2 LYYN2O2LLWMLP2YNLP2P 2Q2RFLR2 LLS2LR2| 'You know Orion always comes up sideways | A |
| Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains | B |
| And rising on his hands he looks in on me | C |
| Busy outdoors by lantern light with something | D |
| I should have done by daylight and indeed | E |
| After the ground is frozen I should have done | F |
| Before it froze and a gust flings a handful | G |
| Of waste leaves at my smoky lantern chimney | C |
| To make fun of my way of doing things | H |
| Or else fun of Orion's having caught me | C |
| Has a man I should like to ask no rights | I |
| These forces are obliged to pay respect to ' | J |
| So Brad McLaughlin mingled reckless talk | K |
| Of heavenly stars with hugger mugger farming | D |
| Till having failed at hugger mugger farming | D |
| He burned his house down for the fire insurance | L |
| And spent the proceeds on a telescope | M |
| To satisfy a lifelong curiosity | C |
| About our place among the infinities | L |
| - | |
| 'What do you want with one of those blame things ' | - |
| I asked him well beforehand 'Don't you get one ' | - |
| - | |
| 'Don't call it blamed there isn't anything | D |
| More blameless in the sense of being less | L |
| A weapon in our human fight ' he said | N |
| 'I'll have one if I sell my farm to buy it ' | - |
| There where he moved the rocks to plow the ground | O |
| And plowed between the rocks he couldn't move | P |
| Few farms changed hands so rather than spend years | L |
| Trying to sell his farm and then not selling | D |
| He burned his house down for the fire insurance | L |
| And bought the telescope with what it came to | Q |
| He had been heard to say by several | R |
| 'The best thing that we're put here for's to see | L |
| The strongest thing that's given us to see with's | L |
| A telescope Someone in every town | S |
| Seems to me owes it to the town to keep one | F |
| In Littleton it might as well be me ' | - |
| After such loose talk it was no surprise | L |
| When he did what he did and burned his house down | S |
| - | |
| Mean laughter went about the town that day | T |
| To let him know we weren't the least imposed on | U |
| And he could wait we'd see to him tomorrow | V |
| But the first thing next morning we reflected | W |
| If one by one we counted people out | X |
| For the least sin it wouldn't take us long | Y |
| To get so we had no one left to live with | Z |
| For to be social is to be forgiving | D |
| Our thief the one who does our stealing from us | L |
| We don't cut off from coming to church suppers | L |
| But what we miss we go to him and ask for | A2 |
| He promptly gives it back that is if still | B2 |
| Uneaten unworn out or undisposed of | C2 |
| It wouldn't do to be too hard on Brad | D2 |
| About his telescope Beyond the age | E2 |
| Of being given one for Christmas gift | F2 |
| He had to take the best way he knew how | G2 |
| To find himself in one Well all we said was | L |
| He took a strange thing to be roguish over | H2 |
| Some sympathy was wasted on the house | L |
| A good old timer dating back along | Y |
| But a house isn't sentient the house | L |
| Didn't feel anything And if it did | I2 |
| Why not regard it as a sacrifice | L |
| And an old fashioned sacrifice by fire | H2 |
| Instead of a new fashioned one at auction | F |
| - | |
| Out of a house and so out of a farm | J2 |
| At one stroke of a match Brad had to turn | K2 |
| To earn a living on the Concord railroad | L2 |
| As under ticket agent at a station | F |
| Where his job when he wasn't selling tickets | L |
| Was setting out up track and down not plants | L |
| As on a farm but planets evening stars | L |
| That varied in their hue from red to green | M2 |
| - | |
| He got a good glass for six hundred dollars | L |
| His new job gave him leisure for stargazing | Y |
| Often he bid me come and have a look | Y |
| Up the brass barrel velvet black inside | N2 |
| At a star quaking in the other end | O2 |
| I recollect a night of broken clouds | L |
| And underfoot snow melted down to ice | L |
| And melting further in the wind to mud | W |
| Bradford and I had out the telescope | M |
| We spread our two legs as we spread its three | L |
| Pointed our thoughts the way we pointed it | P2 |
| And standing at our leisure till the day broke | Y |
| Said some of the best things we ever said | N |
| That telescope was christened the Star Splitter | L |
| Because it didn't do a thing but split | P2 |
| A star in two or three the way you split | P2 |
| A globule of quicksilver in your hand | Q2 |
| With one stroke of your finger in the middle | R |
| It's a star splitter if there ever was one | F |
| And ought to do some good if splitting stars | L |
| 'Sa thing to be compared with splitting wood | R2 |
| - | |
| We've looked and looked but after all where are we | L |
| Do we know any better where we are | L |
| And how it stands between the night tonight | S2 |
| And a man with a smoky lantern chimney | L |
| How different from the way it ever stood | R2 |
Robert Frost
(1)
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About The Star Splitter
The Star Splitter is a poem by Robert Frost. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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