Old John Poem Rhyme Scheme

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Thomas Edward Brown

Old John Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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Old John if I could sit with you a day	A
At Abram's feet upon the asphodel	B
There while the grand old patriarch dreamed away	A
To you my life's whole progress I would tell	B
To you would give accompt of what is well	B
What ill performed how used the trusted talents	C
Since last we heard the sound of Braddan bell	B
A wheen bit callants	C
	-
You were not of our kin nor of our race	C
Old John nor of our church nor of our speech	D
Yet what of strength or truth or tender grace	C
I owe 'twas you that taught me Born to teach	D
All nobleness whereof divines may preach	D
And pedagogues may wag their tongues of iron	E
I have no doubt you could have taught the leech	D
That taught old Chiron	F
	-
For so it is the nascent souls may wait	G
And lose the flexile aptness of their years	C
But if one meets them at the opening gate	G
Who fans their hopes and modifies their fears	C
Then thrives the soul the various growth appears	C
Or meet for sunny blooms or tempests' grappling	H
No wind uproots drought quells frost nips blight sears	C
The well fed sapling	H
	-
Old John do you remember how you ran	I
Before the tide that choked the narrowing firth	J
When Cumbria took you ere you came to Man	I
From distant Galloway that saw your birth	J
Methinks I hear you with athletic mirth	J
Deride the baffled sleuth hounds of the ocean	F
As on you sped not having where on earth	J
You were a notion	F
	-
What joy was mine I what straining of the knees	C
To test the peril of that strenuous mile	B
To hear the clamour of the yelping seas	C
And step for step to challenge you the while	B
And see the sunshine of your constant smile	B
I loved you that you dared the splendid danger	K
I loved you that you landed on our Isle	B
A helpless stranger	K
	-
Old John Old John the air of heaven is calm	L
No ripple curls upon the glassy sea	C
But as you wave on high the golden palm	L
Though love subdues the thrill of victory	C
You must remember how at Trollaby	M
Your five foot one of sinew tough and pliant	N
Threw Illiam of the Union Mills and he	C
Was quite a giant	N
	-
O wholesome food for keen and passionate hearts	C
Tempering the fine pugnacity of youth	O
With timely culture of all generous arts	C
Rejecting menial tricks and wiles uncouth	O
Old John your soul was valiant for the truth	O
But ever 'twas a chivalrous contention	F
Love whispered justice and the mild eyed ruth	O
Kissed grim dissension	F
	-
Old John if in the battle of this life	P
I have not sought your precepts to fulfil	B
If ever I have stirred ignoble strife	P
If ever struck foul blow as bent to kill	B
Not conquer by the love you bear me still	B
O intercede that I may be forgiven	F
Stern Protestant not pray to saints I will	B
To you in Heaven	F
	-
Old John you must have much to do indeed	Q
If I am all forgotten from your mind	R
Ah blame me not I cannot hold a creed	Q
That would impute you selfish or unkind	R
Ask Luther Calvin ask the old man blind	R
That painted Eden ask the grim Confession	F
Of Augsburg what black error lurks behind	R
Such intercession	F
	-
Old John you were an interceder here	S
For me you interceded with great cries	C
How have I stood with mingled love and fear	T
And not a little merriment My eyes	C
Beheld you not Old John your groans and sighs	C
And gasps I heard by listening at the gable	B
Inside of which you knelt and shook the skies	C
But first the stable	B
	-
It was a mighty wrastling with the Lord	U
The hot June air was feverish with the heat	V
And agony of that great monochord	V
Our old horse standing on his patient feet	V
Ripped from the rack the hay that smelt so sweet	V
And when there came a pause their breath soft pouring	H
I heard the cows while prone upon the street	V
Our swine were snoring	H
	-
You prayed for all but for my father most	V
The Maister as you called him that on rock	W
Of sure foundation he might keep the post	V
And by a change of metaphor might stock	W
God's heritage with vines to endure the shock	W
Pf time and sense being planted with his planting	H
That so another trope of all the flock	W
Not one be wanting	H
	-
Old John I think you must have met him there	X
My father somewhere in the fields of rest	V
From doubt enlarged released from mortal care	X
Earth's troubles heave no more his tranquil breast	V
O tell him what you once to me confessed	V
That all the varied modes of rhetorick trying	H
You ever liked the Maister's sermons best	V
When he was crying	H
	-
Old John do you remember how we picked	V
Potatoes for you in the days of old	V
Bright flashed the grep and with its sharp prong pricked	V
The pink fleshed tubers We were blithe and bold	V
Dear John what jokes you cracked what tales you told	V
So garrulous to cheer your little midges	C
What time the setting sun shot shafts of gold	V
Athwart the ridges	C
	-
And when the season changed and hay was mown	F
You weighed the balance of our emulous powers	C
How Maister Hugh was strong the ponderous cone	F
To pitchfork but to build the fragrant towers	C
Was none like Maister Wulliam Blessed hours	C
The empty cart we young ones scaled glad riders	C
And screamed at beetles exiled from their bowers	C
And homeless spiders	C
	-
But when the corn was ripe and truculent churls	C
Forbade us as we culled the cushaged stook	H
Your eye flashed fire your voice was loosed in skins	C
Of rage Old Covenanter how could you look	H
The very genius of the pastoral crook	H
Tythe twined established dominant In our ashes	C
Still live our wonted fires You could not brook	H
You said their fashes	C
	-
A perfect treasury of rustic lore	Y
You were to me Old John how nature thrives	C
In horse or cow their points if less or more	Y
Convex the grunter's spine the cackling wives	C
Of Chanticleer how marked the bird that dives	C
And he that gobbles reddening all the crises	C
You told and ventures of their simple lives	C
Also their prices	C
	-
The matchless tales your own great Wizard penned	V
To us were patent when you gave the key	H
I knew Montrose stern Clavers was my friend	V
I carved the tombs with Old Mortality	H
I sailed with Hatterick on the stormy sea	H
Curled Cavalier and Roundhead atrabiliar	Y
The shifts of Caleb Balderstone to me	H
Were quite familiar	Y
	-
But most of all where all was most I liked	V
To hear the story of the martyrs' doom	Z
The camp remote by stubborn hands bedyked	V
The bones that bleached amid the heather bloom	Z
The gray haired sire the intrepid maid for whom	Z
Old Soiway piled his waters monumental	B
And gave that glorious heart a glorious tomb	Z
Worth Scotia's rental	B
	-
Old John such stories were to me a proof	A2
That 'neath the dimpling of the temporal tides	C
A power is working still in our behoof	A2
A primal power that in the world abides	C
In virgins' hearts it lives and tender brides	C
Confess it Veil your crests ye powers of evil	B
It is an older power and it derides	C
Your vain upheaval	B
	-
Old John do you remember Injebreck	H
And that fine day we went to get a load	V
Of perfumed larch From many a ruddy fleck	H
The resin oozed and dropped upon the road	V
And ever as we trudged you taught the code	V
Traditional of woodcraft Night came sparkling	H
With all her gems and devious to Tromode	V
The stream ran darkling	H
	-
But we the westward height laborious clomb	Z
Then from Mount Rule descended on the Strang	H
And saw afar the pleasant lights of home	Z
Whereat your cheering speech We'll nae be lang	H
Also a wondrous chirp of eld you sang	H
Till when we came to Braddan Bridge the clinging	H
Of that inveterate awe enforced a pang	H
That stopped the singing	H
	-
Yet when we gained the vantage of the hill	B
And breathed more freely on the gentler slope	B2
Then quickly we recovered as men will	B
For Life's sweet buoyancy with Death can cope	B2
Being strung by Nature for that genial scope	B2
And so when you had ceased from your dejection	F
You talked with me of God and faith and hope	B2
And resurrection	F
	-
'Twas thus I learned to love the various man	F
Rich patterned woven of all generous dyes	C
Like to the tartan of some noble clan	F
Blending the colours that alternate rise	C
So ever 'tis refreshing to mine eyes	C
To look beyond convention's flimsy trammel	B
And see the native tints in anywise	C
Of God's enamel	B
	-
Old John you were not of the Calvinists	C
The doctrine o' yElaction you declared	V
You gentlest of all gentle Methodists	C
A saul destroying doctrine	F
Whoso dared God's mercy limit he must be prepared	V
For something awful not propounded clearly	H
But dark as deepest doom that Dante bared	V
Or very nearly	H
	-
On Sunday morning early to the class	C
Then Matins as it's called in ritual puff	A2
Correct then Evensong but let that pass	C
Our curate frowns Nor then had you enough	A2
But with your waistcoat pocket full of snuff	A2
You scorned the flesh suppressed the stomach's clamour	Y
And went where you could get the rael stuff	A2
Absolved from grammar	Y
	-
And who shall blame you John	F
Our prayers are good	V
Compact of precious fragments passion clips	C
Of many souls cemented with the blood	V
Of suffering So we kiss them with the lips	C
Of awful love but when the irregular grips	C
Of zeal constrain the cleric breast or laic	H
Into a thousand fiery shreds it rips	C
Our old mosaic	H
	-
And so it was with you Old John	F
The form Was excellent but you were timely nursed	V
Upon a Cameronian lap the storm	Z
Of that great strife inherited the thirst	V
For God was in you from the very first	V
The rushing flood the energy ecstatic	H
O'erwhelmed you that you could not choose but burst	V
All bonds prelatic	H
	-
No gentler soul e'er took its earthward flight	V
From Heaven's high towers or clove the ethereal blue	B
With softer wings or full of purer light	V
Sweet Saint Theresa bathed in virgin dew	B
Your sister was but Jenny Geddes was too	B
The false Archbishop feared the accents surly	H
Of your firm voice you were John Knox and you	B
Balfour of Burley	H
	-
Then is it wonderful in me you found	V
Disciple apt for every changing mood	V
I also had a root in Scottish ground	V
No tale of ancient wrong my spirit wooed	V
In vain I loved the splendid fortitude	V
Although we served in different battalions	C
Your folk were Presbyterians mine were lewd	V
Episcopalians	C
	-
What joy it was to you the day I came	Z
To visit that dear home no longer mine	F
I sat belated having seen the flame	Z
Of sunset flash from well known windows	C
Nine Was struck upon the clock and yet no sign	F
Of my departure then some admiration	F
Of what I purposed then I could divine	F
A consultation	F
	-
That I should sleep with you was their intent	V
And so we slept being comrades old and tried	V
It was to me a very sacrament	V
As you lay hushed and reverent at my side	V
Your comely portance filled my soul with pride	V
To think how human dignity surpasses	C
The estimate of those who can't abide	V
The lower classes	C
	-
And severed by a curtain on a string	H
Slept Robert and his wife your daughter slept	V
Slept little Beenie and the bright eyed thing	H
You Maggie called she to her mother crept	V
And snuggled in the dark The night wind swept	V
Aboon the thatch came dawn and touched each rafter	Y
With tongue of gold then from the bed I leapt	V
As light as laughter	Y
	-
But I must break my fast before I went	V
And so I sat and shared the pleasant meal	B
And all were up and happy and content	V
And last you prayed May Fashion ne'er repeal	B
That self respect those manners pure and leal	B
My countrymen I charge you never stain them	Z
But as you love your Island's noblest weal	B
Guard and maintain them	Z
	-
O faithfullest my debt to you is long	H
Life's grave complexity around me grows	C
From you it comes if in the busy throng	H
Some friends I have and have not any foes	C
And even now when purple morning glows	C
And I am on the hills a night worn watchman	F
I see you in the centre of the rose	C
Dear brave old Scotchman	F