The Old Man-s Dream After He Died Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABACADEFDGHIJK ALMNAAOOPQOAORDSATOD JTDD OOAUDDOO| from CAWDOR | A |
| Gently with delicate mindless fingers | B |
| Decomposition began to pick and caress the unstable chemistry | A |
| Of the cells of the brain Oh very gently as the first weak breath | C |
| of wind in a wood the storm is still far | A |
| The leaves are stirred faintly to a gentle whispering the nerve cells | D |
| by what would soon destroy them were stirred | E |
| To a gentle whispering Or one might say the brain began to | F |
| glow with its own light in the starless | D |
| Darkness under the dead bone sky like bits of rotting wood on | G |
| the floor of the night forest | H |
| Warm rains have soaked you see them beside the path shine like | I |
| vague eyes So gently the dead man's brain | J |
| Glowing by itself made and enjoyed its dream | K |
| - | |
| The nights of many | A |
| years before this time | L |
| He had been dreaming the sweetness of death as a starved man | M |
| dreams bread but now decomposition | N |
| Reversed the chemistry who had adored in sleep under so many | A |
| disguises the dark redeemer | A |
| In death across a thousand metaphors of form and action celebrated | O |
| life Whatever he had wanted | O |
| To do or become was now accomplished each bud that had been | P |
| nipped and fallen grew out to a branch | Q |
| Sparks of desire forty years quenched flamed up fulfilment | O |
| Out of time undistracted by the nudging pulse beat perfectly | A |
| real to itself being insulated | O |
| From all touch of reality the dream triumphed building from | R |
| past experience present paradise | D |
| More intense as the decay quickened but ever more primitive | S |
| as it proceeded until the ecstasy | A |
| Soared through a flighty carnival of wines and women to the | T |
| simple delight of eating flesh and tended | O |
| Even higher to an unconditional delight But then the interconnections | D |
| between the groups of the brain | J |
| Failing the dreamer and the dream split into multitude Soon the | T |
| altered cells became unfit to express | D |
| Any human or at all describable form of consciousness | D |
| - | |
| Pain and | O |
| pleasure are not to be thought | O |
| Important enough to require balancing these flashes of pos tmortal | A |
| felicity by mindless decay | U |
| Played on the breaking harp by no means countervalued the excess | D |
| of previous pain Such discords | D |
| In the passionate terms of human experience are not resolved | O |
| nor worth it | O |
Robinson Jeffers
(1)
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