The Far Field Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCDEFGHIJKJL A HJMNBCOPLQL HRSTUVLWXJJYYJ JHZUYHHA2ULJL BHB2C2D2H A C2B2JCYJJYYLYHYE2YHJ HYYH THHJF2 C2 YYJHJJHAYJJL JJJYG2YYLLJI | A |
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I dream of journeys repeatedly | B |
Of flying like a bat deep into a narrowing tunnel | C |
Of driving alone without luggage out a long peninsula | D |
The road lined with snow laden second growth | E |
A fine dry snow ticking the windshield | F |
Alternate snow and sleet no on coming traffic | G |
And no lights behind in the blurred side mirror | H |
The road changing from glazed tarface to a rubble of stone | I |
Ending at last in a hopeless sand rut | J |
Where the car stalls | K |
Churning in a snowdrift | J |
Until the headlights darken | L |
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II | A |
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At the field's end in the corner missed by the mower | H |
Where the turf drops off into a grass hidden culvert | J |
Haunt of the cat bird nesting place of the field mouse | M |
Not too far away from the ever changing flower dump | N |
Among the tin cans tires rusted pipes broken machinery | B |
One learned of the eternal | C |
And in the shrunken face of a dead rat eaten by rain and ground beetles | O |
I found in lying among the rubble of an old coal bin | P |
And the tom cat caught near the pheasant run | L |
Its entrails strewn over the half grown flowers | Q |
Blasted to death by the night watchman | L |
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I suffered for young birds for young rabbits caught in the mower | H |
My grief was not excessive | R |
For to come upon warblers in early May | S |
Was to forget time and death | T |
How they filled the oriole's elm a twittering restless cloud all one morning | U |
And I watched and watched till my eyes blurred from the bird shapes | V |
Cape May Blackburnian Cerulean | L |
Moving elusive as fish fearless | W |
Hanging bunched like young fruit bending the end branches | X |
Still for a moment | J |
Then pitching away in half flight | J |
Lighter than finches | Y |
While the wrens bickered and sang in the half green hedgerows | Y |
And the flicker drummed from his dead tree in the chicken yard | J |
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Or to lie naked in sand | J |
In the silted shallows of a slow river | H |
Fingering a shell | Z |
Thinking | U |
Once I was something like this mindless | Y |
Or perhaps with another mind less peculiar | H |
Or to sink down to the hips in a mossy quagmire | H |
Or with skinny knees to sit astride a wet log | A2 |
Believing | U |
I'll return again | L |
As a snake or a raucous bird | J |
Or with luck as a lion | L |
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I learned not to fear infinity | B |
The far field the windy cliffs of forever | H |
The dying of time in the white light of tomorrow | B2 |
The wheel turning away from itself | C2 |
The sprawl of the wave | D2 |
The on coming water | H |
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III | A |
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The river turns on itself | C2 |
The tree retreats into its own shadow | B2 |
I feel a weightless change a moving forward | J |
As of water quickening before a narrowing channel | C |
When banks converge and the wide river whitens | Y |
Or when two rivers combine the blue glacial torrent | J |
And the yellowish green from the mountainy upland | J |
At first a swift rippling between rocks | Y |
Then a long running over flat stones | Y |
Before descending to the alluvial plane | L |
To the clay banks and the wild grapes hanging from the elmtrees | Y |
The slightly trembling water | H |
Dropping a fine yellow silt where the sun stays | Y |
And the crabs bask near the edge | E2 |
The weedy edge alive with small snakes and bloodsuckers | Y |
I have come to a still but not a deep center | H |
A point outside the glittering current | J |
My eyes stare at the bottom of a river | H |
At the irregular stones iridescent sandgrains | Y |
My mind moves in more than one place | Y |
In a country half land half water | H |
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I am renewed by death thought of my death | T |
The dry scent of a dying garden in September | H |
The wind fanning the ash of a low fire | H |
What I love is near at hand | J |
Always in earth and air | F2 |
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IV | C2 |
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The lost self changes | Y |
Turning toward the sea | Y |
A sea shape turning around | J |
An old man with his feet before the fire | H |
In robes of green in garments of adieu | J |
A man faced with his own immensity | J |
Wakes all the waves all their loose wandering fire | H |
The murmur of the absolute the why | A |
Of being born falls on his naked ears | Y |
His spirit moves like monumental wind | J |
That gentles on a sunny blue plateau | J |
He is the end of things the final man | L |
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All finite things reveal infinitude | J |
The mountain with its singular bright shade | J |
Like the blue shine on freshly frozen snow | J |
The after light upon ice burdened pines | Y |
Odor of basswood on a mountain slope | G2 |
A scent beloved of bees | Y |
Silence of water above a sunken tree | Y |
The pure serene of memory in one man | L |
A ripple widening from a single stone | L |
Winding around the waters of the world | J |
Theodore Roethke
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