The Tower Poem Rhyme Scheme

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William Butler Yeats

The Tower Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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I	A
	-
What shall I do with this absurdity	B
O heart O troubled heart this caricature	C
Decrepit age that has been tied to me	B
As to a dog's tail	D
Never had I more	E
Excited passionate fantastical	D
Imagination nor an ear and eye	A
That more expected the impossible	D
No not in boyhood when with rod and fly	A
Or the humbler worm I climbed Ben Bulben's back	F
And had the livelong summer day to spend	G
It seems that I must bid the Muse go pack	F
Choose Plato and Plotinus for a friend	G
Until imagination ear and eye	A
Can be content with argument and deal	D
In abstract things or be derided by	A
A sort of battered kettle at the heel	D
	-
II	A
	-
I pace upon the battlements and stare	H
On the foundations of a house or where	H
Tree like a sooty finger starts from the earth	I
And send imagination forth	J
Under the day's declining beam and call	D
Images and memories	K
From ruin or from ancient trees	K
For I would ask a question of them all	D
	-
Beyond that ridge lived Mrs French and once	L
When every silver candlestick or sconce	M
Lit up the dark mahogany and the wine	N
A serving man that could divine	N
That most respected lady's every wish	O
Ran and with the garden shears	P
Clipped an insolent farmer's ears	Q
And brought them in a little covered dish	O
	-
Some few remembered still when I was young	R
A peasant girl commended by a Song	S
Who'd lived somewhere upon that rocky place	T
And praised the colour of her face	T
And had the greater joy in praising her	C
Remembering that if walked she there	H
Farmers jostled at the fair	H
So great a glory did the song confer	C
	-
And certain men being maddened by those rhymes	U
Or else by toasting her a score of times	U
Rose from the table and declared it right	V
To test their fancy by their sight	V
But they mistook the brightness of the moon	W
For the prosaic light of day	X
Music had driven their wits astray	X
And one was drowned in the great bog of Cloone	W
	-
Strange but the man who made the song was blind	Y
Yet now I have considered it I find	Y
That nothing strange the tragedy began	W
With Homer that was a blind man	W
And Helen has all living hearts betrayed	Z
O may the moon and sunlight seem	A2
One inextricable beam	A2
For if I triumph I must make men mad	B2
	-
And I myself created Hanrahan	W
And drove him drunk or sober through the dawn	W
From somewhere in the neighbouring cottages	C2
Caught by an old man's juggleries	C2
He stumbled tumbled fumbled to and fro	D2
And had but broken knees for hire	C
And horrible splendour of desire	C
I thought it all out twenty years ago	D2
	-
Good fellows shuffled cards in an old bawn	W
And when that ancient ruffian's turn was on	W
He so bewitched the cards under his thumb	E2
That all but the one card became	F2
A pack of hounds and not a pack of cards	C2
And that he changed into a hare	H
Hanrahan rose in frenzy there	H
And followed up those baying creatures towards	C2
	-
O towards I have forgotten what enough	G2
I must recall a man that neither love	H2
Nor music nor an enemy's clipped ear	I2
Could he was so harried cheer	J2
A figure that has grown so fabulous	C2
There's not a neighbour left to say	C2
When he finished his dog's day	C2
An ancient bankrupt master of this house	C2
	-
Before that ruin came for centuries	C2
Rough men at arms cross gartered to the knees	C2
Or shod in iron climbed the narrow stairs	C2
And certain men at arms there were	C
Whose images in the Great Memory stored	K2
Come with loud cry and panting breast	L2
To break upon a sleeper's rest	L2
While their great wooden dice beat on the board	K2
	-
As I would question all come all who can	W
Come old necessitous half mounted man	W
And bring beauty's blind rambling celebrant	M2
The red man the juggler sent	N2
Through God forsaken meadows Mrs French	O2
Gifted with so fine an ear	I2
The man drowned in a bog's mire	P2
When mocking Muses chose the country wench	O2
	-
Did all old men and women rich and poor	Q2
Who trod upon these rocks or passed this door	E
Whether in public or in secret rage	R2
As I do now against old age	R2
But I have found an answer in those eyes	C2
That are impatient to be gone	W
Go therefore but leave Hanrahan	W
For I need all his mighty memories	C2
	-
Old lecher with a love on every wind	Y
Bring up out of that deep considering mind	Y
All that you have discovered in the grave	S2
For it is certain that you have	T2
Reckoned up every unforeknown unseeing	D2
plunge lured by a softening eye	A
Or by a touch or a sigh	A
Into the labyrinth of another's being	D2
	-
Does the imagination dwell the most	U2
Upon a woman won or woman lost	V2
If on the lost admit you turned aside	W2
From a great labyrinth out of pride	W2
Cowardice some silly over subtle thought	X2
Or anything called conscience once	C2
And that if memory recur the sun's	C2
Under eclipse and the day blotted out	Y2
	-
III	A
	-
It is time that I wrote my will	D
I choose upstanding men	W
That climb the streams until	D
The fountain leap and at dawn	W
Drop their cast at the side	W2
Of dripping stone I declare	H
They shall inherit my pride	W2
The pride of people that were	C
Bound neither to Cause nor to State	Z2
Neither to slaves that were spat on	W
Nor to the tyrants that spat	A3
The people of Burke and of Grattan	W
That gave though free to refuse	C2
pride like that of the morn	W
When the headlong light is loose	C2
Or that of the fabulous horn	W
Or that of the sudden shower	C
When all streams are dry	A
Or that of the hour	C
When the swan must fix his eye	A
Upon a fading gleam	A2
Float out upon a long	D2
Last reach of glittering stream	A2
And there sing his last song	D2
And I declare my faith	B3
I mock plotinus' thought	X2
And cry in plato's teeth	C3
Death and life were not	D3
Till man made up the whole	D
Made lock stock and barrel	D
Out of his bitter soul	D
Aye sun and moon and star all	D
And further add to that	A3
That being dead we rise	C2
Dream and so create	Z2
Translunar paradise	C2
I have prepared my peace	C2
With learned Italian things	C2
And the proud stones of Greece	C2
Poet's imaginings	C2
And memories of love	H2
Memories of the words of women	W
All those things whereof	H2
Man makes a superhuman	W
Mirror resembling dream	A2
	-
As at the loophole there	H
The daws chatter and scream	A2
And drop twigs layer upon layer	C
When they have mounted up	E3
The mother bird will rest	L2
On their hollow top	F3
And so warm her wild nest	L2
	-
I leave both faith and pride	W2
To young upstanding men	W
Climbing the mountain side	W2
That under bursting dawn	W
They may drop a fly	A
Being of that metal made	Z
Till it was broken by	A
This sedentary trade	Z
	-
Now shall I make my soul	D
Compelling it to study	B
In a learned school	D
Till the wreck of body	B
Slow decay of blood	G3
Testy delirium	E2
Or dull decrepitude	G3
Or what worse evil come	E2
The death of friends or death	H3
Of every brilliant eye	A
That made a catch in the breath	H3
Seem but the clouds of the sky	A
When the horizon fades	C2
Or a bird's sleepy cry	A
Among the deepening shades	C2