Lines Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AB CCDD EEFFGGHH IGJJKKIILLHH MMEEII NNOO PPQRGG| Spoken by Miss Ada Rehan at the Lyceum Theatre July at a | A |
| performance on behalf of Lady Jeune's Holiday Fund for City Children | B |
| - | |
| BEFORE we part to alien thoughts and aims | C |
| Permit the one brief word the occasion claims | C |
| When mumming and grave projects are allied | D |
| Perhaps an Epilogue is justified | D |
| - | |
| Our under purpose has in truth to day | E |
| Commanded most our musings least the play | E |
| A purpose futile but for your good will | F |
| Swiftly responsive to the cry of ill | F |
| A purpose all too limited to aid | G |
| Frail human flowerets sicklied by the shade | G |
| In winning some short spell of upland breeze | H |
| Or strengthening sunlight on the level leas | H |
| - | |
| Who has not marked where the full cheek should be | I |
| Incipient lines of lank flaccidity | G |
| Lymphatic pallor where the pink should glow | J |
| And where the throb of transport pulses low | J |
| Most tragical of shapes from Pole to Line | K |
| O wondering child unwitting Time's design | K |
| Why should Art add to Nature's quandary | I |
| And worsen ill by thus immuring thee | I |
| That races can do despite to their own | L |
| That Might supernal do indeed condone | L |
| Wrongs individual for the general ease | H |
| Instance the proof in victims such as these | H |
| - | |
| Launched into thoroughfares too thronged before | M |
| Mothered by those whose protest is No more | M |
| Vitalized without option who shall say | E |
| That did Life hang on choosing Yea or Nay | E |
| They had not scorned it with such penalty | I |
| And nothingness implored of Destiny | I |
| - | |
| And yet behind the horizon smile serene | N |
| The down the cornland and the stretching green | N |
| Space the child's heaven scenes which at least ensure | O |
| Some palliative for ill they cannot cure | O |
| - | |
| Dear friends now moved by this poor show of ours | P |
| To make your own long joy in buds and bowers | P |
| For one brief while the joy of infant eyes | Q |
| Changing their urban murk to paradise | R |
| You have our thanks may your reward include | G |
| More than our thanks far more their gratitude | G |
Thomas Hardy
(1)
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