Under Ben Bulben Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCDE FFGGFHI I A JJKLMMNNOOPP A Q MRSSJJJJTT UUVWX XYY ZZA2B2SS C2C2JAAD2D2E2E2F2G2H H2WI2Y J2J2K2L2JJPM2N2N2O2O 2JJ N2 A MJ2N2N2J JP2Q2 AR2AI | A |
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Swear by what the sages spoke | B |
Round the Mareotic Lake | C |
That the Witch of Atlas knew | D |
Spoke and set the cocks a crow | E |
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Swear by those horsemen by those women | F |
Complexion and form prove superhuman | F |
That pale long visaged company | G |
That air in immortality | G |
Completeness of their passions won | F |
Now they ride the wintry dawn | H |
Where Ben Bulben sets the scene | I |
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Here's the gist of what they mean | I |
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II | A |
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Many times man lives and dies | J |
Between his two eternities | J |
That of race and that of soul | K |
And ancient Ireland knew it all | L |
Whether man die in his bed | M |
Or the rifle knocks him dead | M |
A brief parting from those dear | N |
Is the worst man has to fear | N |
Though grave diggers' toil is long | O |
Sharp their spades their muscles strong | O |
They but thrust their buried men | P |
Back in the human mind again | P |
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III | A |
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You that Mitchel's prayer have heard | Q |
'Send war in our time O Lord ' | - |
Know that when all words are said | M |
And a man is fighting mad | R |
Something drops from eyes long blind | S |
He completes his partial mind | S |
For an instant stands at ease | J |
Laughs aloud his heart at peace | J |
Even the wisest man grows tense | J |
With some sort of violence | J |
Before he can accomplish fate | T |
Know his work or choose his mate | T |
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IV | - |
- | |
Poet and sculptor do the work | U |
Nor let the modish painter shirk | U |
What his great forefathers did | V |
Bring the soul of man to God | W |
Make him fill the cradles right | X |
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Measurement began our might | X |
Forms a stark Egyptian thought | Y |
Forms that gentler phidias wrought | Y |
Michael Angelo left a proof | - |
On the Sistine Chapel roof | - |
Where but half awakened Adam | Z |
Can disturb globe trotting Madam | Z |
Till her bowels are in heat | A2 |
proof that there's a purpose set | B2 |
Before the secret working mind | S |
Profane perfection of mankind | S |
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Quattrocento put in paint | C2 |
On backgrounds for a God or Saint | C2 |
Gardens where a soul's at ease | J |
Where everything that meets the eye | A |
Flowers and grass and cloudless sky | A |
Resemble forms that are or seem | D2 |
When sleepers wake and yet still dream | D2 |
And when it's vanished still declare | E2 |
With only bed and bedstead there | E2 |
That heavens had opened | F2 |
Gyres run on | G2 |
When that greater dream had gone | H |
Calvert and Wilson Blake and Claude | H2 |
Prepared a rest for the people of God | W |
Palmer's phrase but after that | I2 |
Confusion fell upon our thought | Y |
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V | - |
- | |
Irish poets earn your trade | J2 |
Sing whatever is well made | J2 |
Scorn the sort now growing up | K2 |
All out of shape from toe to top | L2 |
Their unremembering hearts and heads | J |
Base born products of base beds | J |
Sing the peasantry and then | P |
Hard riding country gentlemen | M2 |
The holiness of monks and after | N2 |
Porter drinkers' randy laughter | N2 |
Sing the lords and ladies gay | O2 |
That were beaten into the clay | O2 |
Through seven heroic centuries | J |
Cast your mind on other days | J |
That we in coming days may be | - |
Still the indomitable Irishry | N2 |
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VI | A |
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Under bare Ben Bulben's head | M |
In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid | J2 |
An ancestor was rector there | N2 |
Long years ago a church stands near | N2 |
By the road an ancient cross | J |
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No marble no conventional phrase | J |
On limestone quarried near the spot | P2 |
By his command these words are cut | Q2 |
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Cast a cold eye | A |
On life on death | R2 |
Horseman pass by | A |
William Butler Yeats
(1)
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