Numbers Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABACDECDFEFGHIGGJ KLGLGGGMNM AGAGGOKNKN KGPGPGQRPRPRSRGG TUGGUUK VWVGWGOGGXXOG AGGAGGYZY| Trefoil and Quatrefoil | A |
| What shaped those destinied small silent leaves | B |
| Or numbered them under the soil | A |
| I lift my dazzled sight | C |
| From grass to sky | D |
| From humming and hot perfume | E |
| To scorching quivering light | C |
| Empty blue Why | D |
| As I bury my face afresh | F |
| In a sunshot vivid gloom | E |
| Minute infinity's mesh | F |
| Where spearing side by side | G |
| Smooth stalk and furred uplift | H |
| Their luminous green secrets from the grass | I |
| Tower to a bud and delicately divide | G |
| Do I think of the things unthought | G |
| Before man was | J |
| - | |
| Bodiless Numbers | K |
| When there was none to explore | L |
| Your winding labyrinths occult | G |
| None to delve your ore | L |
| Of strange virtue or do | G |
| Your magical business you | G |
| Were there never old nor new | G |
| Veined in the world and alive | M |
| Before the Planets Seven | N |
| Before these fingers Five | M |
| - | |
| You that are globed and single | A |
| Crystal virgins and you that part | G |
| Melt and again mingle | A |
| We have hoisted sail in the night | G |
| On the oceans that you chart | G |
| Dark winds carry us onward on | O |
| But you are there before us silent Answers | K |
| Beyond the bounds of the sun | N |
| You body yourselves in the stars inscrutable dancers | K |
| Native where we are none | N |
| - | |
| O inhuman Numbers | K |
| All things change and glide | G |
| Corrupt and crumble suffer wreck and decay | P |
| But obstinate dark Integrities you abide | G |
| And obey but them who obey | P |
| All things else are dyed | G |
| In the colours of man's desire | Q |
| But you no bribe nor prayer | R |
| Avails to soften or sway | P |
| Nothing of me you share | R |
| Yet I cannot think you away | P |
| And if I seek to escape you still you are there | R |
| Stronger than caging pillars of iron | S |
| Not to be passed in an air | R |
| Where human wish and word | G |
| Fall like a frozen bird | G |
| - | |
| Music asleep | T |
| In pulses of sound in the waves | U |
| Hidden runes rubbed bright | G |
| Dizzy ladders of thought in the night | G |
| Are you masters or slaves | U |
| Subtlest of man's slaves | U |
| Shadowy Numbers | K |
| - | |
| In a vision I saw | V |
| Old vulture Time feeding | W |
| On the flesh of the world I saw | V |
| The home of our use undated | G |
| Seasons of fruiting and seeding | W |
| Withered and hunger and thirst | G |
| Dead with all they fed on | O |
| Till at last when Time was sated | G |
| Only you persisted | G |
| D dal Numbers sole and same | X |
| Invisible skeleton frame | X |
| Of the peopled earth we tread on | O |
| Last as first | G |
| - | |
| Because naught can avail | A |
| To wound or to tarnish you | G |
| Because you are neither sold nor bought | G |
| Because you have not the power to fail | A |
| But live beyond our furthest thought | G |
| Strange Numbers of infinite clue | G |
| Beyond fear beyond ruth | Y |
| You strengthen also me | Z |
| To be in my own truth | Y |
Robert Laurence Binyon
(1)
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About Numbers
Numbers is a poem by Robert Laurence Binyon. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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