Koya San Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABCBCA DEEFGHEGHE AAEAAE IJKAEAIEIA EEEEEE JAJLDEMEMD ENONEO NAKEEPEQPQ EENEENKEJNAEAEAA RSTSRT EEAUAEEAEE

High on the mountain shrouded in vast treesA
The stillness had the chastity of frostB
I trod the fallen pallors of the moonC
The path was paven stone I was not lostB
But followed whither it should lead me soonC
Into the mountain's midmost secreciesA
-
Wandering into the mind sweet luminous warmD
Remembrances of the bodyE
Smell of the woods in the irradiated noondayE
Flushes of foliageF
The ridged horizon opening far and blueG
Came with a breathing of colour and then sankH
Remote as flames gleam in a dark pane glassedE
Earth had rolled onward into regions newG
And all the darkness at my senses drankH
Aware now subtly as of a frontier passedE
-
On either side the trees unending roseA
No shadowy sound stirred amid all their plumesA
Each seemed a separate and a soaring nightE
Black canopies of cold uncounted tombsA
Pilgrims had here fallen on their reposeA
Graven with names their tablets gleamed uprightE
-
And softly as the fallen lightness of a willow leafI
On the liquid stealingJ
Of water unrippled profound my spirit was stolenK
By the crystal silenceA
And with me it seemed invisible others wentE
Spirits unhistoried of such dim surmiseA
As in the dark the tremble of a leafI
With them I went and Night was eloquentE
Of things that are not in the day's beliefI
And made me of those things like a blind man wiseA
-
Obscurity at last relented roundE
A glimmering space the inmost Shrine appearedE
Before it motionless as any treeE
Praying a pilgrim stood There was a soundE
Of water in the distance hardly heardE
But most that living man astonished meE
-
Many stone lanterns made a clustered shiningJ
As if in a wondrousA
Cavern of lost and intricate shadows enclosingJ
The light's clear vigilL
But the air behind that solitary formD
Was trembling like a veil of trembling lightE
Where from an urn rose endless incense fumeM
That left a ghostly fragrance on the nightE
It seemed a spirit sighing to resumeM
The touch of what was breathing human warmD
-
Bare headed sandalled still that pilgrim prayedE
Unconscious of all else but his heart's prayerN
Out of his breast a broken murmur deepO
Came with his frosted breathing on the airN
Before the shrine in its tree guarded shadeE
Where that great Saint continued in his sleepO
-
It seemed that from Time's beginning he had stood thereN
In a hushed vastnessA
Solitary erect amid the unimagined motionK
Of worlds unnumberedE
Absorbed secure in his small star of lightE
And now that ceaseless fugitive frail smokeP
Appeared to me like shadowy souls in flightE
Woven together into a veil of breathQ
That wavered as their little life awokeP
And passed for ever into birth or deathQ
-
What prayer was his that mingled with the mistE
Of the forgotten sighings of the deadE
I knew not yet in him I seemed to shareN
Longings that still were patient to persistE
Through Time and Death from lips that once were redE
In that one image all my kind stood thereN
Lover of the body lover of the divine sunK
Of earth's replenishedE
Fullness and change and savour of life rejoicingJ
Careless of all careN
Me now the Silence for its vessel choseA
And filled from wells unsounded by the mindE
No other need I had and could not lessA
Than to be wholly to this spell resignedE
And dark communion with the spirit that knowsA
Vigil and frost and solitarinessA
-
Fragments we are and none has seen the wholeR
Only some moment wins us to restoreS
The touch of infinite companionshipT
I that had journeyed from so far a shoreS
Found at the world's end the same pilgrim soulR
And the old sorrow no flight can outstripT
-
Now in the midst of the irradiated noondayE
Suddenly absentE
While in my ear is the sound of familiar voicesA
Light talk and laughterU
My thought has in an instant flown the seasA
A great remoteness occupies my heartE
And there arises on my inward sightE
The shadowy apparition of vast treesA
A pathway opens I am stolen apartE
And I ascend a mountain in the nightE

Robert Laurence Binyon



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