Aforetime Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEFFGHGIJIK LMNOPHQRSRTUVWXNYKFZ A2UFB2C2 FMD2FE2F2G2H2H2H2I2J 2K2H2L2H2QM2N2O2P2H2 Q2R2S2R2O2H2T2H2FH2U 2R2SH2V2W2K2FQO2X2R2 R2DY2H2R2F2Z2N2R2FA3 H2L2FA3Z2B3H2C3D3Z2E 3FK2H2R2F3H2G3LK2H3R 2FSFI3H2Z2QR2R2R2O2H 2R2R2R2J3H2R2H2R2LR2 R2R2K3H2R2L3FH2R2H2R 2H2R2R2H2H2MR2C3F2H2 I3FR2H2H2H2Z2FL3M3R2 H2R2LR2H2R2H2Dear exile from the hurrying crowd | A |
At work I muse to you aloud | A |
Thought on my anvil softens glows | B |
And I forget our art has foes | B |
For life the mother of beauty seems | C |
A joyous sleep with waking dreams | C |
Then the toy armoury of the brain | D |
Opining judging looks as vain | D |
As trowels silver gilt for use | E |
Of mayors and kings who have to lay | F |
Foundation stones in hope they may | F |
Be honoured for walls others build | G |
I in amicable muse | H |
With fathomless wonder only filled | G |
Whisper over to your ear | I |
Listening two hundred odd miles north | J |
And give thought chase that were you here | I |
Our talk would never run to earth | K |
- | |
Man can answer no momentous question | L |
Whence comes his spirit Has it lived before | M |
Reason fails hot springs of feeling spout | N |
Their snowy columns high in the dim land | O |
Of his surmise violent divine decisions | P |
That often rule him and at times he views | H |
Portraits of places he has never been to | Q |
Yet more minute and vivid than remembrance | R |
Of boyhood homes sail between sleep and waking | S |
Like some mirage refuting all experience | R |
With topsy turvy ships | T |
That steals by in dead calms through tropic haze | U |
And many a man in his climacteric years | V |
Thoughts and remembered words have roused from sleep | W |
With knowledge that he lacked on lying down | X |
And I lapped in a trance of reverie doubt | N |
Some spore of episodes | Y |
Anterior far beyond this body's birth | K |
Dispersed like puffs of dust impalpable | F |
Wind carried round this globe for centuries | Z |
May breathed with common air yet swim the blood | A2 |
And striking root in this or that brain raise | U |
Imaginations unaccountable | F |
One such seems half implied in all I am | B2 |
And many times re pondered shapes like this | C2 |
- | |
A child myself I watched a woman loll | F |
Like to a clot of seaweed thrown ashore | M |
Heavy and limp as cloth soaked in black dye | D2 |
She glooms the noontide dazzle where a bay | F |
Bites into vineyarded flats close fenced by hills | E2 |
Over whose tops lap forests of cork and fir | F2 |
And reach in places half down their rough slopes | G2 |
Lower some few cleared fields square on the thickets | H2 |
Of junipers and longer thorns than furze | H2 |
So clumped that they are trackless even for goats | H2 |
I know two things about that woman first | I2 |
She is a slave and I am free and next | J2 |
As mothers need their sons' love she needs mine | K2 |
Longings to utter fond compassionate sounds | H2 |
Stir through me checked by knowing wiser folk | L2 |
Reprobate such indulgence Ill at ease | H2 |
Mute yet her captive I thrust brown toes through | Q |
Loose sand no daily large tides overwhelm | M2 |
To cake and roll it firm and smooth and clean | N2 |
As the Atlantic remakes shores you know | O2 |
But there like trailing skirts long flaws of wind | P2 |
Obliterate the prints feet during calms | H2 |
Track over and over its always lonely stretch | Q2 |
Till some will have it ghosts must rove at night | R2 |
For folk by day are rare yet a still week | S2 |
Leaves hardly ten yards anywhere uncrossed | R2 |
Tempest spreads all revirginate like snow | O2 |
Half burying dead wood snapped off from tossed trees | H2 |
Since right along the foreshore out of reach | T2 |
Of furious driven waves three hundred pines | H2 |
Straggle the marches between sand and soil | F |
Like maps of stone walled fields their branching roots | H2 |
Hold the silt still so that thin grass grows there | U2 |
Its blades whitened with travelling powdery drift | R2 |
The besom of the lightest breeze sets stirring | S |
That woman's gaze toils worn from remote years | H2 |
Yet forward yearns through the bright spacious noon | V2 |
Beyond the farthest isle whose filmy shape | W2 |
Floats faint on the sea line | K2 |
I scooping grains up with the frail half shell | F |
Pale green and white lined of sea urchin knew | Q |
What her eyes sought as often children know | O2 |
Of grief or sin they could not name or think of | X2 |
Yet sooth or shrink from so I saw and longed | R2 |
To heal her tender wound and yet said naught | R2 |
The energy of bygone joy and pain | D |
Had left her listless figure charged with magic | Y2 |
That caught and held my idleness near hers | H2 |
Resentful of her power my spirit chafed | R2 |
Against its own deep pity as though it were | F2 |
Raised ghost and she the witch had bid it haunt me | Z2 |
What's more I knew this slave by rights should glean | N2 |
And faggot drift wood not lounge there and waste | R2 |
My father's food dreaming his time away | F |
For then as now the common minded rich | A3 |
Grudged ease to those whose toil brought them in means | H2 |
For every waste of life At length I spoke | L2 |
Insulting both my inarticulate soul | F |
And her with acted anger 'Lazy wretch | A3 |
Is it for eyes like yours to watch the sea | Z2 |
As though you waited for a homing ship | B3 |
My father might with reason spend his hours | H2 |
Scanning the far horizon for his Swan | C3 |
Whose outward lading was full half a vintage | D3 |
Is now months overdue ' She turned on me | Z2 |
Her languor knit and through its homespun wrap | E3 |
Her muscular frame gave hints of rebel will | F |
While those great caves of night her eyes faced mine | K2 |
Dread with the silence of unuttered wrongs | H2 |
At last she spoke as one who must be heeded | R2 |
Truly I am not clear | F3 |
Whether her meaning was conveyed in words | H2 |
She mingled accents of an eastern tongue | G3 |
With deformed phrases of our native Latin | L |
Or whether thought from her gaze poured through mine | K2 |
The gravity of recollected life | H3 |
Was hers condensed and like a vision flashed | R2 |
Suddenly on the guilty mind a whole | F |
Compact no longer a mere tedious string | S |
Of moments negligible each so small | F |
As they were lived but stark like a slain man | I3 |
Who would alive have been ourself with twice | H2 |
The skill the knowledge the vitality | Z2 |
Actually ours Yea as a tree may view | Q |
With fingerless boughs and lorn pole impotent | R2 |
An elephant gorged upon its leaves depart | R2 |
Men often have reviewed an unwieldy past | R2 |
That like a feasted Mammoth leisured and slow | O2 |
Turned its back on their warped bones Even thus | H2 |
Momentous with reproach her grave regard | R2 |
Made me feel mean cashiered of rank and right | R2 |
My limbs that twelve good years had nursed were numbed | R2 |
And all their fidgety quicksilver grew stiff | J3 |
Novel and fevering hallucinations | H2 |
Invaded my attention So daylight | R2 |
When shutters are thrown back spreads through a house | H2 |
As then the dreams and terrors of the night | R2 |
Decamp so from my mind were driven | L |
All its own thoughts and feelings Close she leant | R2 |
Propped on a swarthy arm while the other helped | R2 |
With eloquent gesture potent as wizard wand | R2 |
Veil the world off as with an airy web | K3 |
Or flowing tent a gleam with pictured folds | H2 |
These tauten and distend one sea of wheat | R2 |
Islanded with black cities borders now | L3 |
The voluminous blue pavilion of day | F |
There under to the nearest of those towns | H2 |
This woman younger by ten years made haste | R2 |
While at her side ran a small boy of six | H2 |
They neared the walls half a huge double gate | R2 |
Lay prostrate though the other by stone hinges | H2 |
Hung to its flanking tower The path they followed | R2 |
Threaded an old paved road whose flags were edged | R2 |
With dry grass and dry weeds even cactuses | H2 |
Had pushed the stones up or found root in muck heaps | H2 |
The path struck up the slope of the fallen door | M |
Basalt like midnight o'er which dusty feet | R2 |
Had greyed a passage for it rested on | C3 |
Some d bris fallen from the left hand tower | F2 |
And from its upper edge rude blocks like steps | H2 |
Led down into the straight main street that ran | I3 |
Past eyeless buildings mined as it were from coal | F |
And earthquake raised to light Palaces and | R2 |
Roofless wide flighted colonnaded temples | H2 |
The uncemented walls piled plumb with blocks | H2 |
Squared polished fitted with daemonic patience | H2 |
Each gaping threshold high again as need be | Z2 |
Waited a nine foot lord to enter hall | F |
Where the least draughty corner sheltered now | L3 |
Half tented hut or improvised small home | M3 |
For Arab brown light footed and proud necked | R2 |
As was this woman with the compelling voice | H2 |
Their present hutched and hived within that past | R2 |
As bees in the parchment chest of Samson's lion | L |
And all seem conscious that their life was sweet | R2 |
Like mice who clean their faces after meals | H2 |
And have such grace of movement when unscared | R2 |
As | H2 |
Thomas Sturge Moore
(1)
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