The Palace Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BBCC DDE FFGG HHII JJB KKE| A | |
| - | |
| - | |
| When I was a King and a Mason a Master proven and skilled | B |
| I cleared me ground for a Palace such as a King should build | B |
| I decreed and dug down to my levels Presently under the silt | C |
| I came on the wreck of a Palace such as a King had built | C |
| - | |
| There was no worth in the fashion there was no wit in the plan | D |
| Hither and thither aimless the ruined footings ran | D |
| Masonry brute mishandled but carven on every stone | E |
| 'After me cometh a Builder Tell him I too have known ' | - |
| - | |
| Swift to my use in my trenches where my well planned ground works grew | F |
| I tumbled his quoins and his ashlars and cut and reset them anew | F |
| Lime I milled of his marbles burned it slacked it and spread | G |
| Taking and leaving at pleasure the gifts of the humble dead | G |
| - | |
| Yet I despised not nor gloried yet as we wrenched them apart | H |
| I read in the razed foundations the heart of that builder's heart | H |
| As he had risen and pleaded so did I understand | I |
| The form of the dream he had followed in the face of the thing he had planned | I |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| When I was a King and a Mason in the open noon of my pride | J |
| They sent me a Word from the Darkness They whispered and called me aside | J |
| They said 'The end is forbidden ' They said 'Thy use is fulfilled | B |
| 'Thy Palace shall stand as that other's the spoil of a King who shall build ' | - |
| - | |
| I called my men from my trenches my quarries my wharves and my sheers | K |
| All I had wrought I abandoned to the faith of the faithless years | K |
| Only I cut on the timber only I carved on the stone | E |
| 'After me cometh a Builder Tell him I too have known ' | - |
Rudyard Kipling
(1)
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