An Artist Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AABCD EFCGGHIJKLMHAAGNAOPO QGRASTULVES AWSXA SUSYZA2 GB2OC2KAD2E2F2 GG2H2UUAH2 GGI2GWJ2EF2K2 K2G GCAK2K2CGA

That sculptor we knew the passionate eyed son of a quarrymanA
Who astonished Rome and Paris in his meteor youth and thenA
was gone at his high tide of triumphsB
Without reason or good bye I have seen him again lately afterC
twenty years but not in EuropeD
-
In desert hills I rode a horse slack kneed with thirst Down aE
steep slope a dancing swarmF
Of yellow butterflies over a shining rock made me hope waterC
We slid down to the placeG
The spring was bitter but the horse drank I imagined wearingsG
of an old path from that wet rockH
Ran down the canyon I followed soon they were lost I cameI
to a stone valley in which it seemedJ
No man nor his mount had ever ventured you wonderedK
whether even a vulture'd ever spread sail thereL
There were stones of strange form under a cleft in the far hillM
I tethered the horse to a rockH
And scrambled over A heap like a stone torrent a moraineA
But monstrously formed limbs of broken carving appeared inA
the rock fall enormous breasts defaced headsG
Of giants the eyes calm through the brute veils of fracture ItN
was natural then to climb higher and go inA
Up the cleft gate The canyon was a sheer walled crack windingO
at the entrance but around its bendP
The walls grew dreadful with stone giants presences growingO
out of the rigid precipice that stroveQ
In dream between stone and life intense to cast their chaosG
or to enter and return stone fleshed nerve stretchedR
Great bodies ever more beautiful and more heavy with painA
they seemed leading to some unbearableS
Consummation of the ecstasy but there troll amongT
Titans the bearded master of the place accosted meU
In a cold anger a mallet in his hand filthy and ragged ThereL
was no kindness in that man's mindV
But after he had driven me down to the entrance he spoke aE
littleS
-
The merciless sun had found the slot nowA
To hide in and lit for the wick of that stone lamp bowl a skyW
almost I thought abominably beautifulS
While our lost artist we used to admire for now I knew himX
spoke of his passionA
-
He said 'MarbleS
White marble is fit to model a snow mountain let man beU
modest Nor bronze I am bound to have my toolS
In my material no irrelevances I found this pit of dark grayY
freestone fine grained and tough enoughZ
To make sketches that under any weathering will last my lifetimeA2
-
The town is eight miles off I can fetch food and no one followsG
me home I have water and a caveB2
Here and no possible lack of material I need therefore nothingO
As to companions I make themC2
And models They are seldom wanted I know a Basque shepherdK
I sometimes use and a woman of the townA
What more Sympathy Praise I have never desired them andD2
also I have never deserved them I will not show youE2
More than the spalls you saw by accidentF2
-
What I see is the enormousG
beauty of things but what I attemptG2
Is nothing to that I am helpless toward thatH2
It is only to form in stone the mould of some ideal humanityU
that might be worthy to beU
Under that lightning Animalcules that God if he were givenA
to laughter might omit to laugh atH2
Those children of my hands are tortured because they feel '-
he said 'the storm of the outer magnificenceG
They are giants in agony They have seen from my eyesG
The man destroying beauty of the dawns over their notchI2
yonder and all the obliterating starsG
But in their eyes they have peace I have lived a little and IW
thinkJ2
Peace marrying pain alone can breed that excellence in theE
luckless race might make it decentF2
To exist at all on the star lit stone breastK2
-
I hope ' he said 'thatK2
when I grow old and the chisel dropsG
I may crawl out on a ledge of the rock and die like a wolf '-
-
TheseG
fragments are all I can rememberC
These in the flare of the desert evening Having been drivenA
so brutally forth I never returnedK2
Yet I respect him enough to keep his name and the place secretK2
I hope that some other travellerC
May stumble on that ravine of Titans after their maker hasG
died While he lives let him aloneA

Robinson Jeffers



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