Westward Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBAAAAAACCAADDEFGG HHAAAAIIJKLLAAAAMMAA NNNNAANN CCNNAAOOPPQQNNRRJJAA SSTTUUVVWWNNFFPPXYNN ZZA2A2B2B2HHUUAAC2C2 AAAAAAD2D2E2E2MMAACC AAMMU UNNNNCCF2EG2G2NNAANN AAD2D2CCAANNUH2NNE2E 2I2B2J2K2L2L2M2M2NNA ARRNNAAN2N2AAG2G2O2O 2AAP2Q2OOR2R2S2S2NNT 2T2NNAA S2S2KJAAF2FU2U2NNCCT 2 T2V2V2F2F2P2T2CCLLAA D2D2W2W2NNAACCCCHHAA AANNAAX2X2LPAAY2MQQE 2E2 Z2Z2AANNAAHHI found my Love among the fern She slept | A |
My shadow stole across her as I stept | A |
More lightly and slowly seeing her pillowed so | B |
In the short turfed and shelving green hollow | B |
Upon a cushion of wild thyme amid | A |
Tall bracken tufts that roughly luminous hid | A |
Her hair in amber shadow Then I stopped | A |
The light was in the West the wind had dropped | A |
A burning fragrance breathed out of the ground | A |
And the sea murmur rose remote around | A |
But my Love slept My very heart was singing | C |
With the sweet swarm of winged thoughts it was bringing | C |
And she lay there with the just heaving breast | A |
So still As a lark drops down to its nest | A |
I sank beside her waiting for those eyes | D |
To complete earth with light that nowhere lies | D |
But in their depths for me and carry home | E |
The flight of my full spirit I had come | F |
From wandering wide beaches far beneath | G |
This airy height of summer scented heath | G |
I was alone and the shore solitary | H |
And the sea glittered infinite and starry | H |
As on the sands I paced that dazzling wet | A |
Shone round until the tumbled rocks they met | A |
At the gaunt cliff's root silvery runnels fed | A |
From oozy levels draining to their bed | A |
Wound flashing between smoothly furrowed slabs | I |
Which the sky coloured there the youngling crabs | I |
Had scrawled a trail and weeds dull rose and green | J |
Lay by their shadows where old foam had been | K |
Crusted with shells A mist of finest spray | L |
Blew from the western glory and in the bay | L |
The ever streaming surges gleamed and roared | A |
Like a rejoicing Power for ever poured | A |
For the mere splendour of its motion salt | A |
The air came to the nostril and the vault | A |
Of heaven had burnt its colours into one | M |
Unfathomable clearness that the sun | M |
Was soul of as it journeyed down the West | A |
And in the leaping waters made each crest | A |
A moment of live fire I breathed the immense | N |
And shining silence It was to my sense | N |
Like youth that's all horizon and misgives | N |
Nothing and in the unbounded moment lives | N |
And names not hope yet among things endured | A |
And unamended being so assured | A |
Of its desire and the long day and so | N |
Ignorant of that swift Night saying No | N |
- | |
Ah why should peace and liberty most bring | C |
Into the heart that loves them most the sting | C |
Of Time's oppression and the thwarting thorns | N |
The loss the want the many clouded morns | N |
O for deliverance To untwist the bond | A |
Of circumstance to breathe the blest Beyond | A |
Where we would be to incarnate clean and true | O |
All we were born and dedicated to | O |
O Love how often have we shared that sigh | P |
To me beside that boundless sea and sky | P |
Intolerably came my briefness all | Q |
The undone things Why into hearts so small | Q |
Were crammed these hungering immensities | N |
Thrust each day back to a prison that denies | N |
Their native satisfaction I cast me down | R |
On a great slope of rock that ribbed and brown | R |
Was cloven at the top and in between | J |
The hollowed ledges I could lightly lean | J |
And see the deep cup of a pool it held | A |
Its limpid leaving of the surge that swelled | A |
A tide since over that sea buried reef | S |
A round pool deeply clear beyond belief | S |
Rough with minute white shells about its rim | T |
Its crystal in the shadow gleamed how dim | T |
And small while in my eye the homeless main | U |
Its brine was of a splendid restless plain | U |
Of water spread a path for any keel | V |
To take the round world over and to feel | V |
Pressures of every wind and haven far | W |
Where it should choose mirroring mast and spar | W |
In sultry smooth lagoon or under pines | N |
Snow plumed on iron fiord or where lines | N |
Of ships at a famed port with traffic hum | F |
And chimes of foreign bells to sailors come | F |
And strange towers over crowded wharfs look high | P |
Ah such a drop of casual life was I | P |
At evening left my simple scanted raw | X |
Experience but the sipping of a straw | Y |
Snatched from me soon I lifted up my gaze | N |
Into the west and the spray misted blaze | N |
Where the sun gloried and his glittering track | Z |
Allured me on and on Then I looked back | Z |
All was changed Something had transfigured each | A2 |
Of those hard cliffs that thrust into the beach | A2 |
Their bouldered ramparts Every narrow seam | B2 |
Brimmed with the opposite light and the warm gleam | B2 |
Found out small clusters of sea pink and many | H |
A samphire tuft in its uneven cranny | H |
And bloomed a burning orange on the stain | U |
Of lichen and dissembled rosy grain | U |
On the rock's blackness At the summit showed | A |
A gemmy green where the grass patches glowed | A |
Between those jutting crags The air was hush | C2 |
And the shore quivered with a phantom flush | C2 |
Of molten colours on far shining sand | A |
All was as warm to sight as to the hand | A |
Distinct yet insubstantial as if what | A |
The eye saw had been created by a thought | A |
Intenser than its vision Memory played | A |
A music in the mind and Time delayed | A |
To whisper names forgotten I saw no more | D2 |
The sculpture of those rocks that vivid shore | D2 |
But far off hours arose before me there | E2 |
Beautiful in a bright unearthly air | E2 |
Memory touched her stops and one by one | M |
They came each with its own shadow and sun | M |
And its peculiar perfume each a part | A |
Of the quick blood and pulsing of my heart | A |
I carried riches I was as a king | C |
Clothed in a more than royal apparelling | C |
Because of glories in the mind and light | A |
In eyes I knew and the unended flight | A |
Of thought and friendship warmer than the sun | M |
And dateless joy and hope shared and things done | M |
With all the soul's strength and still precious pain | U |
- | |
Youth O sweet careless Youth flooding the vein | U |
With easy blood what time the body knows | N |
Scarce that it is so brimmingly life glows | N |
Within it and its motions are like words | N |
Born happy on the lips and like the birds | N |
On April blossomed boughs rich fancies throng | C |
The mind's exuberance and spill in song | C |
I think my heart back into all the bloom | F2 |
And feel it fresh As one that enters home | E |
I am there the shyness and the secret flame | G2 |
Of ecstasy that knew not any name | G2 |
The wild heart eating fevers the young tears | N |
The absorbed soul the trouble and the fears | N |
Wide as the night the joy without a thought | A |
Meeting the morning Time has never taught | A |
My heart to lose them Still I smell that rose | N |
Of so inscrutable sweetness and still glows | N |
The glory of the wonder when I first | A |
Heard the enchanted poets and they burst | A |
In song upon my spirit as if before | D2 |
No one had ever passed that magic door | D2 |
But for me first in all the world they sang | C |
Sweetest of all things Youth sweet in the pang | C |
As in the pleasure you are in me yet | A |
Changed as the grape to wine could I forget | A |
Then were this hand dust In those yesterdays | N |
Memory happy and familiar strays | N |
Exploring hours that long in shadow lain | U |
Come effortlessly all distinct again | H2 |
As in my light boat I would track the banks | N |
Of narrow streams that rippled past the ranks | N |
Of yellow flowered reeds and knew not where | E2 |
They led me for no human sound was there | E2 |
But the shy wings were near me and I to them | I2 |
And the wild earth was round me as in a dream | B2 |
And I was melted into it I can hear | J2 |
Lost in the green bright silence where I steer | K2 |
Beneath gold shadows wavering on my arm | L2 |
The water saying over its low charm | L2 |
Among the reeds and dreading to disturb | M2 |
The mirror of the blossomed willow herb | M2 |
Drink it into my heart O idle hours | N |
Floating with motion like the summer towers | N |
Of cloud in the blue noon I have not drained | A |
Your fullness yet for all that care has rained | A |
Upon defeated days of dark sundown | R |
Like burial of all beauty and all renown | R |
When the spirit sits within its fortalice | N |
And watches mute One simple passionate kiss | N |
Can alter earth for ever Out of what | A |
Imagination or what far forethought | A |
Of Time came Love in beauty new and strange | N2 |
With eyes of light my earth and sky to change | N2 |
And bring me vision of a promised land | A |
As if long sunken centuries had planned | A |
The meeting of our lips From far we came | G2 |
To one another ere we had a name | G2 |
Wonderful shape white ecstasy the cup | O2 |
That God with living wine has so filled up | O2 |
O body made like music like a word | A |
Syllabled in spontaneous accord | A |
Quick sensed with apprehension capable | P2 |
Of extreme joy of pangs far piercing full | Q2 |
Of divine wants like a wave moving through | O |
The passionate and transparent soul of you | O |
O mystery and power charged with unknown | R2 |
Futurities a lovely flame that's blown | R2 |
In the wind of life and sister'd to all fire | S2 |
That has in it the peril of all desire | S2 |
Dearer than breath what are you made of whence | N |
Come you I know not the eluded sense | N |
Only replies To name her is to tell | T2 |
The very name of Love '' It is to spell | T2 |
A language more profound than tongue can use | N |
Written in the heart's blood of the world to lose | N |
All that is worth the losing and to trust | A |
In spite of withered leaf and charnel dust | A |
- | |
Who knows his own beginning Hour from hour | S2 |
Is born in secret buds and breaks to flower | S2 |
Within us Nothing we have ever been | K |
Nothing we have endured nothing we have seen | J |
Ay and before we came into this light | A |
Were sacrificial hopes and exquisite | A |
Fears and the jealous patience of the womb | F2 |
And throes of self consuming martyrdom | F |
Imprinted on the fibre of our flesh | U2 |
Nothing is ended but is made afresh | U2 |
Into a subtler potency the eyes | N |
See a more wondrous earth the senses prize | N |
More its more pregnant meaning and we go | C |
To enrich a world beyond us overflow | C |
Into a mind of what thoughts who can tell | T2 |
- | |
O Love we draw from an unfathomed well | T2 |
Where are the June nights that made heaven a whole | V2 |
Blue jewel throbbing through the very soul | V2 |
Where is the dizzying bloom and the perfume | F2 |
Earth ecstasy sighed up to starry gloom | F2 |
That in the touching lips' ineffable | P2 |
Communion was a spirit and a spell | T2 |
As if we had found within ourselves a being | C |
More infinite than any shown to seeing | C |
Where is the beauty that stole thought away | L |
And moved to tears some one remembered day | L |
Where is the laughter some sweet chance would start | A |
To leave its summer warmth about the heart | A |
Where are the places we shall see no more | D2 |
Are they not powers to haunt us at the core | D2 |
Of feeling and evoke the eternal Now | W2 |
Like music out of nothing Nay I vow | W2 |
Most perishable most immortal tastes | N |
And the frail flame that touches us and hastes | N |
Into the dark endures more than the build | A |
Of proudest fortress We are found and filled | A |
And it suffices For we pass among | C |
Grandeurs and from a grandeur we are sprung | C |
Marvellous in our destiny and know | C |
Man is most man meeting a giant foe | C |
Whether overcoming or defeated We | H |
Who hear like moving rumour of the sea | H |
And march of ocean waves the human sound | A |
About us filled with meaning more profound | A |
Who know what hearts beat by us and have shared | A |
In all the mighty martyr names have dared | A |
Who feel all earth beneath the stars the race | N |
Of rivers and the mountains in their place | N |
Faculties of our being and have a mind | A |
Dyed in the ardent story of our kind | A |
We in our briefness in our storm and ache | X2 |
Our loves magnificent in hearts that break | X2 |
We all our bonds and bounds exceeding ay | L |
Burning a loftier flame because we die | P |
We at Time's outpost we the thrust spear head | A |
Against the opposing darkness of the dead | A |
We are the world's adventure We speed on | Y2 |
Stay not but westward travel with the sun | M |
Westward into the splendour that takes all | Q |
And carry far into the great light's fall | Q |
That infinite memory of the world we bear | E2 |
Within our spirits burning and aware | E2 |
- | |
Wake Love awake Her eyes shone into mine | Z2 |
That moment In the air was light divine | Z2 |
Sinking and yet suspended still to hold | A |
Rocks ocean heaven within one bath of gold | A |
But in the soul that met me from those eyes | N |
Impassioning the beauty of the skies | N |
Was my completion Earth as newly made | A |
Ev'n to the smallest shape of green grass blade | A |
Lived and the thrilled bright silence sang to me | H |
For in the hush I heard the boundless sea | H |
Robert Laurence Binyon
(1)
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