To Think Of Time Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AB ACA DD EFBB BG HEEIJDDKBL BG CMN OB BB PB BABQBR RARAI L BN RB RR RRSRBN TU VV LRARAB WE ABAR X BL BY BBLBBB ZZ VVA2 DDDDHR RBB2B2Y C2BD2 AA E2BBB RB BBA F2R SBBTo think of time of all that retrospection | A |
To think of to day and the ages continued henceforward | B |
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Have you guess'd you yourself would not continue | A |
Have you dreaded these earth beetles | C |
Have you fear'd the future would be nothing to you | A |
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Is to day nothing Is the beginningless past nothing | D |
If the future is nothing they are just as surely nothing | D |
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To think that the sun rose in the east that men and women were | E |
flexible real alive that everything was alive | F |
To think that you and I did not see feel think nor bear our part | B |
To think that we are now here and bear our part | B |
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Not a day passes not a minute or second without an accouchement | B |
Not a day passes not a minute or second without a corpse | G |
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The dull nights go over and the dull days also | H |
The soreness of lying so much in bed goes over | E |
The physician after long putting off gives the silent and terrible look for an answer | E |
The children come hurried and weeping and the brothers and sisters are sent for | I |
Medicines stand unused on the shelf the camphor smell has long pervaded the rooms | J |
The faithful hand of the living does not desert the hand of the dying | D |
The twitching lips press lightly on the forehead of the dying | D |
The breath ceases and the pulse of the heart ceases | K |
The corpse stretches on the bed and the living look upon it | B |
It is palpable as the living are palpable | L |
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The living look upon the corpse with their eye sight | B |
But without eye sight lingers a different living and looks curiously on the corpse | G |
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To think the thought of Death merged in the thought of materials | C |
To think that the rivers will flow and the snow fall and fruits ripen and act upon others as upon us now yet not act upon us | M |
To think of all these wonders of city and country and others taking great interest in them and we taking no interest in them | N |
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To think how eager we are in building our houses | O |
To think others shall be just as eager and we quite indifferent | B |
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I see one building the house that serves him a few years or seventy or eighty years at most | B |
I see one building the house that serves him longer than that | B |
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Slow moving and black lines creep over the whole earth they never cease they are the burial lines | P |
He that was President was buried and he that is now President shall surely be buried | B |
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A reminiscence of the vulgar fate | B |
A frequent sample of the life and death of workmen | A |
Each after his kind | B |
Cold dash of waves at the ferry wharf posh and ice in the river half frozen mud in the streets a gray discouraged sky overhead the short last daylight of Twelfth month | Q |
A hearse and stages other vehicles give place the funeral of an old | B |
Broadway stage driver the cortege mostly drivers | R |
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Steady the trot to the cemetery duly rattles the death bell the gate is pass'd the new dug grave is halted at the living alight the hearse uncloses | R |
The coffin is pass'd out lower'd and settled the whip is laid on the coffin the earth is swiftly shovel'd in | A |
The mound above is flatted with the spades silence | R |
A minute no one moves or speaks it is done | A |
He is decently put away is there anything more | I |
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He was a good fellow free mouth'd quick temper'd not bad looking able to take his own part witty sensitive to a slight ready with life or death for a friend fond of women gambled ate hearty drank hearty had known what it was to be flush grew low spirited toward the last sicken'd was help'd by a contribution died aged forty one years and that was his funeral | L |
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Thumb extended finger uplifted apron cape gloves strap wet weather clothes whip carefully chosen boss spotter starter hostler somebody loafing on you you loafing on somebody headway man before and man behind good day's work bad day's work pet stock mean stock first out last out turning in at night | B |
To think that these are so much and so nigh to other drivers and he there takes no interest in them | N |
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The markets the government the working man's wages to think what account they are through our nights and days | R |
To think that other working men will make just as great account of them yet we make little or no account | B |
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The vulgar and the refined what you call sin and what you call goodness to think how wide a difference | R |
To think the difference will still continue to others yet we lie beyond the difference | R |
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To think how much pleasure there is | R |
Have you pleasure from looking at the sky have you pleasure from poems | R |
Do you enjoy yourself in the city or engaged in business or planning a nomination and election or with your wife and family | S |
Or with your mother and sisters or in womanly housework or the beautiful maternal cares | R |
These also flow onward to others you and I flow onward | B |
But in due time you and I shall take less interest in them | N |
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Your farm profits crops to think how engross'd you are | T |
To think there will still be farms profits crops yet for you of what avail | U |
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What will be will be well for what is is well | V |
To take interest is well and not to take interest shall be well | V |
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The sky continues beautiful | L |
The pleasure of men with women shall never be sated nor the pleasure of women with men nor the pleasure from poems | R |
The domestic joys the daily housework or business the building of houses these are not phantasms they have weight form location | A |
Farms profits crops markets wages government are none of them phantasms | R |
The difference between sin and goodness is no delusion | A |
The earth is not an echo man and his life and all the things of his life are well consider'd | B |
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You are not thrown to the winds you gather certainly and safely around yourself | W |
Yourself Yourself Yourself forever and ever | E |
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It is not to diffuse you that you were born of your mother and father it is to identify you | A |
It is not that you should be undecided but that you should be decided | B |
Something long preparing and formless is arrived and form'd in you | A |
You are henceforth secure whatever comes or goes | R |
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The threads that were spun are gather'd the weft crosses the warp the pattern is systematic | X |
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The preparations have every one been justified | B |
The orchestra have sufficiently tuned their instruments the baton has given the signal | L |
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The guest that was coming he waited long for reasons he is now housed | B |
He is one of those who are beautiful and happy he is one of those that to look upon and be with is enough | Y |
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The law of the past cannot be eluded | B |
The law of the present and future cannot be eluded | B |
The law of the living cannot be eluded it is eternal | L |
The law of promotion and transformation cannot be eluded | B |
The law of heroes and good doers cannot be eluded | B |
The law of drunkards informers mean persons not one iota thereof can be eluded | B |
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Slow moving and black lines go ceaselessly over the earth | Z |
Northerner goes carried and Southerner goes carried and they on the Atlantic side and they on the Pacific and they between and all through the Mississippi country and all over the earth | Z |
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The great masters and kosmos are well as they go the heroes and good doers are well | V |
The known leaders and inventors and the rich owners and pious and distinguish'd may be well | V |
But there is more account than that there is strict account of all | A2 |
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The interminable hordes of the ignorant and wicked are not nothing | D |
The barbarians of Africa and Asia are not nothing | D |
The common people of Europe are not nothing the American aborigines are not nothing | D |
The infected in the immigrant hospital are not nothing the murderer or mean person is not nothing | D |
The perpetual successions of shallow people are not nothing as they go | H |
The lowest prostitute is not nothing the mocker of religion is not nothing as he goes | R |
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Of and in all these things | R |
I have dream'd that we are not to be changed so much nor the law of us changed | B |
I have dream'd that heroes and good doers shall be under the present and past law | B2 |
And that murderers drunkards liars shall be under the present and past law | B2 |
For I have dream'd that the law they are under now is enough | Y |
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If otherwise all came but to ashes of dung | C2 |
If maggots and rats ended us then Alarum for we are betray'd | B |
Then indeed suspicion of death | D2 |
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Do you suspect death If I were to suspect death I should die now | A |
Do you think I could walk pleasantly and well suited toward annihilation | A |
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Pleasantly and well suited I walk | E2 |
Whither I walk I cannot define but I know it is good | B |
The whole universe indicates that it is good | B |
The past and the present indicate that it is good | B |
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How beautiful and perfect are the animals | R |
How perfect the earth and the minutest thing upon it | B |
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What is called good is perfect and what is called bad is just as perfect | B |
The vegetables and minerals are all perfect and the imponderable fluids are perfect | B |
Slowly and surely they have pass'd on to this and slowly and surely they yet pass on | A |
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I swear I think now that everything without exception has an eternal Soul | F2 |
The trees have rooted in the ground the weeds of the sea have the animals | R |
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I swear I think there is nothing but immortality | S |
That the exquisite scheme is for it and the nebulous float is for it and the cohering is for it | B |
And all preparation is for it and identity is for it and life and materials are altogether for it | B |
Walt Whitman
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