Poet Siegfried Sassoon

Siegfried Sassoon

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Limitations Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABCB DEFGFG HIJI KLKL MNNOO PPEPPP PCPQRMRMPM

If you could crowd them into forty linesA
Yes you can do it once you get a startB
All that you want is waiting in your headC
For long ago you've learnt it off by heartB
-
-
Begin your mind's the room where you have sleptD
Don't pause for rhymes till twilight woke you earlyE
The window stands wide open as it stoodF
When tree tops loomed enchanted for a childG
Hearing the dawn's first thrushes through the woodF
Warbling you know the words serene and wildG
-
You've said it all before you dreamed of DeathH
A dim Apollo in the bird voiced breezeI
That drifts across the morning veiled with showersJ
While golden weather shines among dark treesI
-
You've got your limitations let them singK
And all your life will waken with a cryL
Why should you halt when rapture's on the wingK
And you've no limit but the cloud flocked skyL
-
But some chap shouts 'Here stop it that's been done '-
As God might holloa to the rising sunM
And then relent because the glorying raysN
Remind Him of green glinting Eden daysN
And Adam's trustful eyes as he looks upO
From carving eagles on his beechwood cupO
-
Young Adam knew his job he could condenseP
Life to an eagle from the unknown immenseP
Go on whoever you are your lines can beE
A whisper in the music from the weirsP
Of song that plunge and tumble toward the seaP
That is the uncharted mercy of our tearsP
-
-
I told you it was easy Words are foolsP
Who follow blindly once they get a leadC
But thoughts are kingfishers that haunt the poolsP
Of quiet seldom seen and all you needQ
Is just that flash of joy above your dreamR
So when those forty platitudes are doneM
You'll hear a bird note calling from the streamR
That wandered through your childhood and the sunM
Will strike the old flaming wonder from the watersP
And there'll be forty lines not yet begunM

Siegfried Sassoon



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