The Tower Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCBDEDADAFGFGADAD A HHIJDKKD LMNNOPQO RSTTCHHC UUVVWXXW YYWWZA2A2B2 WWC2C2D2CCD2 WWE2F2C2HHC2 G2H2I2J2C2C2C2C2 C2C2C2CK2L2L2K2 WWM2N2O2I2P2O2 Q2ER2R2C2WWC2 YYS2T2D2AAD2 U2V2W2W2X2C2C2Y2 A DWDWW2HW2CZ2WA3WC2WC 2WCACAA2D2A2D2B3X2C3 D3DDDDA3C2Z2C2C2C2C2 C2H2WH2WA2 HA2CE3L2F3L2 W2WW2WAZAZ DBDBG3E2G3E2H3AH3AC2 AC2I | A |
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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 |
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II | A |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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III | A |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
William Butler Yeats
(1)
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