The Symphony Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AAABBCCCDDEFGGHHHBBI IIJJEFEFKKLMMMEEEFEE NNNMMMMOOPGQGQFFFPEF MMMRRRSS TTTGGTTTMMUMMVVVFFFF VVTTTTTTTVVVVVVMMMME EVEEETTTVVVMMMMMMMMM MVVVVMMMMMMMMMMMMEEV EMMMWWWMMMMMMMMMTTTT T MMMMVVVTTTTTMMMMMMMM VVVETETMMMXXXXTTTTTT MMMMTTTTTTTTTTMMMVVV YYYMMMEE VTTTTMMM MMMM VVVVTTZZZZTTTTTTA2A2 A2A2TVVVVTTTTTTTTTTT TTTTTVVVVTTTT TMMMMTTTTTTTTTTTMMMM TMM TTTTTTTT MMTTMMMMMTTT TVVMTMTTTVVVVGGGGG TTTT V

O Trade O Trade would thou wert dead	A
The Time needs heart 'tis tired of head	A
We're all for love the violins said	A
Of what avail the rigorous tale	B
Of bill for coin and box for bale	B
Grant thee O Trade thine uttermost hope	C
Level red gold with blue sky slope	C
And base it deep as devils grope	C
When all's done what hast thou won	D
Of the only sweet that's under the sun	D
Ay canst thou buy a single sigh	E
Of true love's least least ecstasy	F
Then with a bridegroom's heart beats trembling	G
All the mightier strings assembling	G
Ranged them on the violins' side	H
As when the bridegroom leads the bride	H
And heart in voice together cried	H
Yea what avail the endless tale	B
Of gain by cunning and plus by sale	B
Look up the land look down the land	I
The poor the poor the poor they stand	I
Wedged by the pressing of Trade's hand	I
Against an inward opening door	J
That pressure tightens evermore	J
They sigh a monstrous foul air sigh	E
For the outside leagues of liberty	F
Where Art sweet lark translates the sky	E
Into a heavenly melody	F
'Each day all day' these poor folks say	K
'In the same old year long drear long way	K
We weave in the mills and heave in the kilns	L
We sieve mine meshes under the hills	M
And thieve much gold from the Devil's bank tills	M
To relieve O God what manner of ills	M
The beasts they hunger and eat and die	E
And so do we and the world's a sty	E
Hush fellow swine why nuzzle and cry	E
Swinehood hath no remedy	F
Say many men and hasten by	E
Clamping the nose and blinking the eye	E
But who said once in the lordly tone	N
Man shall not live by bread alone	N
But all that cometh from the Throne	N
Hath God said so	M
But Trade saith No	M
And the kilns and the curt tongued mills say Go	M
There's plenty that can if you can't we know	M
Move out if you think you're underpaid	O
The poor are prolific we're not afraid	O
Trade is trade '	P
Thereat this passionate protesting	G
Meekly changed and softened till	Q
It sank to sad requesting	G
And suggesting sadder still	Q
And oh if men might some time see	F
How piteous false the poor decree	F
That trade no more than trade must be	F
Does business mean 'Die you live I '	P
Then 'Trade is trade' but sings a lie	E
'Tis only war grown miserly	F
If business is battle name it so	M
War crimes less will shame it so	M
And widows less will blame it so	M
Alas for the poor to have some part	R
In yon sweet living lands of Art	R
Makes problem not for head but heart	R
Vainly might Plato's brain revolve it	S
Plainly the heart of a child could solve it	S
	-
And then as when from words that seem but rude	T
We pass to silent pain that sits abrood	T
Back in our heart's great dark and solitude	T
So sank the strings to gentle throbbing	G
Of long chords change marked with sobbing	G
Motherly sobbing not distinctlier heard	T
Than half wing openings of the sleeping bird	T
Some dream of danger to her young hath stirred	T
Then stirring and demurring ceased and lo	M
Every least ripple of the strings' song flow	M
Died to a level with each level bow	U
And made a great chord tranquil surfaced so	M
As a brook beneath his curving bank doth go	M
To linger in the sacred dark and green	V
Where many boughs the still pool overlean	V
And many leaves make shadow with their sheen	V
But presently	F
A velvet flute note fell down pleasantly	F
Upon the bosom of that harmony	F
And sailed and sailed incessantly	F
As if a petal from a wild rose blown	V
Had fluttered down upon that pool of tone	V
And boatwise dropped o' the convex side	T
And floated down the glassy tide	T
And clarified and glorified	T
The solemn spaces where the shadows bide	T
From the warm concave of that fluted note	T
Somewhat half song half odor forth did float	T
As if a rose might somehow be a throat	T
When Nature from her far off glen	V
Flutes her soft messages to men	V
The flute can say them o'er again	V
Yea Nature singing sweet and lone	V
Breathes through life's strident polyphone	V
The flute voice in the world of tone	V
Sweet friends	M
Man's love ascends	M
To finer and diviner ends	M
Than man's mere thought e'er comprehends	M
For I e'en I	E
As here I lie	E
A petal on a harmony	V
Demand of Science whence and why	E
Man's tender pain man's inward cry	E
When he doth gaze on earth and sky	E
I am not overbold	T
I hold	T
Full powers from Nature manifold	T
I speak for each no tongued tree	V
That spring by spring doth nobler be	V
And dumbly and most wistfully	V
His mighty prayerful arms outspreads	M
Above men's oft unheeding heads	M
And his big blessing downward sheds	M
I speak for all shaped blooms and leaves	M
Lichens on stones and moss on eaves	M
Grasses and grains in ranks and sheaves	M
Broad fronded ferns and keen leaved canes	M
And briery mazes bounding lanes	M
And marsh plants thirsty cupped for rains	M
And milky stems and sugary veins	M
For every long armed woman vine	V
That round a piteous tree doth twine	V
For passionate odors and divine	V
Pistils and petals crystalline	V
All purities of shady springs	M
All shynesses of film winged things	M
That fly from tree trunks and bark rings	M
All modesties of mountain fawns	M
That leap to covert from wild lawns	M
And tremble if the day but dawns	M
All sparklings of small beady eyes	M
Of birds and sidelong glances wise	M
Wherewith the jay hints tragedies	M
All piquancies of prickly burs	M
And smoothnesses of downs and furs	M
Of eiders and of minevers	M
All limpid honeys that do lie	E
At stamen bases nor deny	E
The humming birds' fine roguery	V
Bee thighs nor any butterfly	E
All gracious curves of slender wings	M
Bark mottlings fibre spiralings	M
Fern wavings and leaf flickerings	M
Each dial marked leaf and flower bell	W
Wherewith in every lonesome dell	W
Time to himself his hours doth tell	W
All tree sounds rustlings of pine cones	M
Wind sighings doves' melodious moans	M
And night's unearthly under tones	M
All placid lakes and waveless deeps	M
All cool reposing mountain steeps	M
Vale calms and tranquil lotos sleeps	M
Yea all fair forms and sounds and lights	M
And warmths and mysteries and mights	M
Of Nature's utmost depths and heights	M
These doth my timid tongue present	T
Their mouthpiece and leal instrument	T
And servant all love eloquent	T
I heard when ' All for love ' the violins cried	T
So Nature calls through all her system wide	T
'Give me thy love O man so long denied '	-
Much time is run and man hath changed his ways	M
Since Nature in the antique fable days	M
Was hid from man's true love by proxy fays	M
False fauns and rascal gods that stole her praise	M
The nymphs cold creatures of man's colder brain	V
Chilled Nature's streams till man's warm heart was fain	V
Never to lave its love in them again	V
Later a sweet Voice 'Love thy neighbor' said	T
Then first the bounds of neighborhood outspread	T
Beyond all confines of old ethnic dread	T
Vainly the Jew might wag his covenant head	T
' All men are neighbors ' so the sweet Voice said	T
So when man's arms had circled all man's race	M
The liberal compass of his warm embrace	M
Stretched bigger yet in the dark bounds of space	M
With hands a grope he felt smooth Nature's grace	M
Drew her to breast and kissed her sweetheart face	M
Yea man found neighbors in great hills and trees	M
And streams and clouds and suns and birds and bees	M
And throbbed with neighbor loves in loving these	M
But oh the poor the poor the poor	V
That stand by the inward opening door	V
Trade's hand doth tighten ever more	V
And sigh their monstrous foul air sigh	E
For the outside hills of liberty	T
Where Nature spreads her wild blue sky	E
For Art to make into melody	T
Thou Trade thou king of the modern days	M
Change thy ways	M
Change thy ways	M
Let the sweaty laborers file	X
A little while	X
A little while	X
Where Art and Nature sing and smile	X
Trade is thy heart all dead all dead	T
And hast thou nothing but a head	T
I'm all for heart the flute voice said	T
And into sudden silence fled	T
Like as a blush that while 'tis red	T
Dies to a still still white instead	T
	-
Thereto a thrilling calm succeeds	M
Till presently the silence breeds	M
A little breeze among the reeds	M
That seems to blow by sea marsh weeds	M
Then from the gentle stir and fret	T
Sings out the melting clarionet	T
Like as a lady sings while yet	T
Her eyes with salty tears are wet	T
O Trade O Trade the Lady said	T
I too will wish thee utterly dead	T
If all thy heart is in thy head	T
For O my God and O my God	T
What shameful ways have women trod	T
At beckoning of Trade's golden rod	T
Alas when sighs are traders' lies	M
And heart's ease eyes and violet eyes	M
Are merchandise	M
O purchased lips that kiss with pain	V
O cheeks coin spotted with smirch and stain	V
O trafficked hearts that break in twain	V
And yet what wonder at my sisters' crime	Y
So hath Trade withered up Love's sinewy prime	Y
Men love not women as in olden time	Y
Ah not in these cold merchantable days	M
Deem men their life an opal gray where plays	M
The one red Sweet of gracious ladies' praise	M
Now comes a suitor with sharp prying eye	E
Says 'Here you Lady if you'll sell I'll buy	E
Come heart for heart a trade What weeping why '	-
Shame on such wooers' dapper mercery	V
I would my lover kneeling at my feet	T
In humble manliness should cry 'O sweet	T
I know not if thy heart my heart will greet	T
I ask not if thy love my love can meet	T
Whate'er thy worshipful soft tongue shall say	M
I'll kiss thine answer be it yea or nay	M
I do but know I love thee and I pray	M
To be thy knight until my dying day '	-
Woe him that cunning trades in hearts contrives	M
Base love good women to base loving drives	M
If men loved larger larger were our lives	M
And wooed they nobler won they nobler wives	M
	-
There thrust the bold straightforward horn	V
To battle for that lady lorn	V
With heartsome voice of mellow scorn	V
Like any knight in knighthood's morn	V
Now comfort thee said he	T
Fair Lady	T
For God shall right thy grievous wrong	Z
And man shall sing thee a true love song	Z
Voiced in act his whole life long	Z
Yea all thy sweet life long	Z
Fair Lady	T
Where's he that craftily hath said	T
The day of chivalry is dead	T
I'll prove that lie upon his head	T
Or I will die instead	T
Fair Lady	T
Is Honor gone into his grave	A2
Hath Faith become a caitiff knave	A2
And Selfhood turned into a slave	A2
To work in Mammon's cave	A2
Fair Lady	T
Will Truth's long blade ne'er gleam again	V
Hath Giant Trade in dungeons slain	V
All great contempts of mean got gain	V
And hates of inward stain	V
Fair Lady	T
For aye shall name and fame be sold	T
And place be hugged for the sake of gold	T
And smirch robed Justice feebly scold	T
At Crime all money bold	T
Fair Lady	T
Shall self wrapt husbands aye forget	T
Kiss pardons for the daily fret	T
Wherewith sweet wifely eyes are wet	T
Blind to lips kiss wise set	T
Fair Lady	T
Shall lovers higgle heart for heart	T
Till wooing grows a trading mart	T
Where much for little and all for part	T
Make love a cheapening art	T
Fair Lady	T
Shall woman scorch for a single sin	V
That her betrayer may revel in	V
And she be burnt and he but grin	V
When that the flames begin	V
Fair Lady	T
Shall ne'er prevail the woman's plea	T
'We maids would far far whiter be	T
If that our eyes might sometimes see	T
Men maids in purity '	-
Fair Lady	T
Shall Trade aye salve his conscience aches	M
With jibes at Chivalry's old mistakes	M
The wars that o'erhot knighthood makes	M
For Christ's and ladies' sakes	M
Fair Lady	T
Now by each knight that e'er hath prayed	T
To fight like a man and love like a maid	T
Since Pembroke's life as Pembroke's blade	T
I' the scabbard death was laid	T
Fair Lady	T
I dare avouch my faith is bright	T
That God doth right and God hath might	T
Nor time hath changed His hair to white	T
Nor His dear love to spite	T
Fair Lady	T
I doubt no doubts I strive and shrive my clay	M
And fight my fight in the patient modern way	M
For true love and for thee ah me and pray	M
To be thy knight until my dying day	M
Fair Lady	T
Made end that knightly horn and spurred away	M
Into the thick of the melodious fray	M
	-
And then the hautboy played and smiled	T
And sang like any large eyed child	T
Cool hearted and all undefiled	T
Huge Trade he said	T
Would thou wouldst lift me on thy head	T
And run where'er my finger led	T
Once said a Man and wise was He	T
'Never shalt thou the heavens see	T
Save as a little child thou be '	-
Then o'er sea lashings of commingling tunes	M
The ancient wise bassoons	M
Like weird	T
Gray beard	T
Old harpers sitting on the high sea dunes	M
Chanted runes	M
Bright waved gain gray waved loss	M
The sea of all doth lash and toss	M
One wave forward and one across	M
But now 'twas trough now 'tis crest	T
And worst doth foam and flash to best	T
And curst to blest	T
	-
Life Life thou sea fugue writ from east to west	T
Love Love alone can pore	V
On thy dissolving score	V
Of harsh half phrasings	M
Blotted ere writ	T
And double erasings	M
Of chords most fit	T
Yea Love sole music master blest	T
May read thy weltering palimpsest	T
To follow Time's dying melodies through	V
And never to lose the old in the new	V
And ever to solve the discords true	V
Love alone can do	V
And ever Love hears the poor folks' crying	G
And ever Love hears the women's sighing	G
And ever sweet knighthood's death defying	G
And ever wise childhood's deep implying	G
But never a trader's glozing and lying	G
	-
And yet shall Love himself be heard	T
Though long deferred though long deferred	T
O'er the modern waste a dove hath whirred	T
Music is Love in search of a word	T
	-
	-
Baltimore	V

Sidney Lanier

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