The Task: Book Ii. -- The Time-piece Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKLKMNOIPQR IIIIISTUIVWIXYZA2IZI B2C2D2IE2F2KI G2IH2I2J2K2L2VM2N2II O2IP2Q2M2IR2IS2T2U2V 2U2U2N2 W2IU2IX2U2Y2Z2U2A3IU 2U2B3U2IC3IU2IU2U2U2 D3E3T2U2F3U2U2IIG3IE 3IIU2DIH3I3IJ3VU2U2B 3K3L3U2L2C2IIC2M3 N3T2U2U2IU2U2U2IU2U2 O3D3U2IIU2D2P3Q3R3D2 U2S3T3U3VC2 IV3U2W3X3IIU2U2UY3Z3 U2IU2U2W3U2E2QU2A4LW IU2U2IOh for a lodge in some vast wilderness | A |
Some boundless contiguity of shade | B |
Where rumour of oppression and deceit | C |
Of unsuccessful or successful war | D |
Might never reach me more My ear is pained | E |
My soul is sick with every day's report | F |
Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled | G |
There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart | H |
It does not feel for man The natural bond | I |
Of brotherhood is severed as the flax | J |
That falls asunder at the touch of fire | K |
He finds his fellow guilty of a skin | L |
Not coloured like his own and having power | K |
To enforce the wrong for such a worthy cause | M |
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey | N |
Lands intersected by a narrow frith | O |
Abhor each other Mountains interposed | I |
Make enemies of nations who had else | P |
Like kindred drops been mingled into one | Q |
Thus man devotes his brother and destroys | R |
And worse than all and most to be deplored | I |
As human nature's broadest foulest blot | I |
Chains him and tasks him and exacts his sweat | I |
With stripes that mercy with a bleeding heart | I |
Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast | I |
Then what is man And what man seeing this | S |
And having human feelings does not blush | T |
And hang his head to think himself a man | U |
I would not have a slave to till my ground | I |
To carry me to fan me while I sleep | V |
And tremble when I wake for all the wealth | W |
That sinews bought and sold have ever earned | I |
No dear as freedom is and in my heart's | X |
Just estimation prized above all price | Y |
I had much rather be myself the slave | Z |
And wear the bonds than fasten them on him | A2 |
We have no slaves at home Then why abroad | I |
And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave | Z |
That parts us are emancipate and loosed | I |
Slaves cannot breathe in England if their lungs | B2 |
Receive our air that moment they are free | C2 |
They touch our country and their shackles fall | D2 |
That's noble and bespeaks a nation proud | I |
And jealous of the blessing Spread it then | E2 |
And let it circulate through every vein | F2 |
Of all your empire that where Britain's power | K |
Is felt mankind may feel her mercy too | I |
- | |
Sure there is need of social intercourse | G2 |
Benevolence and peace and mutual aid | I |
Between the nations in a world that seems | H2 |
To toll the death bell of its own decease | I2 |
And by the voice of all its elements | J2 |
To preach the general doom When were the winds | K2 |
Let slip with such a warrant to destroy | L2 |
When did the waves so haughtily o'erleap | V |
Their ancient barriers deluging the dry | M2 |
Fire from beneath and meteors from above | N2 |
Portentous unexampled unexplained | I |
Have kindled beacons in the skies and the old | I |
And crazy earth has had her shaking fits | O2 |
More frequent and foregone her usual rest | I |
Is it a time to wrangle when the props | P2 |
And pillars of our planet seem to fail | Q2 |
And nature with a dim and sickly eye | M2 |
To wait the close of all But grant her end | I |
More distant adn that prophecy demands | R2 |
A longer respite unaccomplished yet | I |
Still they are frowning signals and bespeak | S2 |
Displeasure in his breast who smites the earth | T2 |
Or heals it makes it languish or rejoice | U2 |
And 'tis but seemly that where all deserve | V2 |
And stand exposed by common peccancy | U2 |
To what no few have felt there should be peace | U2 |
And brethren in calamity should love | N2 |
- | |
Alas for Sicily rude fragments now | W2 |
Lie scattered where the shapely column stood | I |
Her palaces are dust In all her streets | U2 |
The voice of singing and the sprightly chord | I |
Are silent Revelry and dance and show | X2 |
Suffer a syncope and solemn pause | U2 |
While God performs upon the trembling stage | Y2 |
Of his own works his dreadful part alone | Z2 |
How does the earth receive him with what signs | U2 |
Of gratulation and delight her king | A3 |
Pours she not all her choicest fruits abroad | I |
Her sweetest flowers her aromatic gums | U2 |
Disclosing paradise where'er he treads | U2 |
She quakes at his approach Her hollow womb | B3 |
Conceiving thunders through a thousand deeps | U2 |
And fiery caverns roars beneath his foot | I |
The hills move lightly and the mountains smoke | C3 |
For He has touched them From the extremest point | I |
Of elevation down into the abyss | U2 |
His wrath is busy and his frown is felt | I |
The rocks fall headlong and the valleys rise | U2 |
The rivers die into offensive pools | U2 |
And charged with putrid verdure breathe a gross | U2 |
And mortal nuisance into all the air | D3 |
What solid was by transformation strange | E3 |
Grows fluid and the fixed and rooted earth | T2 |
Tormented into billows heaves and swells | U2 |
Or with vortiginous and hideous whirl | F3 |
Sucks down its prey insatiable Immense | U2 |
The tumult and the overthrow the pangs | U2 |
And agonies of human and of brute | I |
Multitudes fugitive on every side | I |
Migrates uplifted and with all its soil | G3 |
Alighting in far distant fields finds out | I |
A new possessor and survives the change | E3 |
Ocean has caught the frenzy and upwrought | I |
To an enormous and o'erbearing height | I |
Not by a mighty wind but by that voice | U2 |
Which winds and waves obey invades the shore | D |
Resistless Never such a sudden flood | I |
Upridged so high and sent on such a charge | H3 |
Possessed an inland scene Where now the throng | I3 |
That pressed the beach and hasty to depart | I |
Looked to the sea for safety They are gone | J3 |
Gone with the refluent wave into the deep | V |
A prince with half his people Ancient towers | U2 |
And roofs embattled high the gloomy scenes | U2 |
Where beauty oft and lettered worth consume | B3 |
Life in the unproductive shades of death | K3 |
Fall prone the pale inhabitants come forth | L3 |
And happy in their unforeseen release | U2 |
From all the rigours of restraint enjoy | L2 |
The terrors of the day that sets them free | C2 |
Who then that has thee would not hold thee fast | I |
Freedom whom they that lose thee so regret | I |
That even a judgement making way for thee | C2 |
Seems in their eyes a mercy for thy sake | M3 |
- | |
Such evil sin hath wrought and such a flame | N3 |
Kindled in heaven that it burns down to earth | T2 |
And in the furious inquest that it makes | U2 |
On God's behalf lays waste his fairest works | U2 |
The very elements though each be meant | I |
The minister of man to serve his wants | U2 |
Conspire against him With his breath he draws | U2 |
A plague into his blood and cannot use | U2 |
Life's necessary means but he must die | I |
Storms rise to o'erwhelm him or if stormy winds | U2 |
Rise not the waters of the deep shall rise | U2 |
And needing none assistance of the storm | O3 |
Shall roll themselves ashore and reach him there | D3 |
The earth shall shake him out of all his holds | U2 |
Or make his house his grave nor so content | I |
Shall counterfeit the motions of the flood | I |
And drown him in her dry and dusty gulfs | U2 |
What then were they the wicked above all | D2 |
And we the righteous whose fast anchored isle | P3 |
Moved not while theirs was rocked like a light skiff | Q3 |
The sport of every wave No none are clear | R3 |
And none than we more guilty But where all | D2 |
Stand chargeable with guilt and to the shafts | U2 |
Or wrath obnoxious God may choose his mark | S3 |
May punish if he please the less to warn | T3 |
The more malignant If he spared not them | U3 |
Tremble and be amazed at thine escape | V |
Far guiltier England lest he spare not thee | C2 |
- | |
Happy the man who sees a God employ'd | I |
In all the good and ill that chequer life | V3 |
Resolving all events with their effects | U2 |
And manifold results into the will | W3 |
And arbitration wise of the Supreme | X3 |
Did not his eye rule all things and intend | I |
The least of our concerns since from the least | I |
The greatest oft originate could chance | U2 |
Find place in his dominion or dispose | U2 |
One lawless particle to thwart his plan | U |
Then God might be surprised and unforeseen | Y3 |
Contingence might alarm him and disturb | Z3 |
The smooth and equal course of his affairs | U2 |
This truth Philosophy though eagle eyed | I |
In natur's tendencies oft overlooks | U2 |
And having found his instrument forgets | U2 |
Or disregards or more presumptuous still | W3 |
Denies the power that wields it God proclaims | U2 |
His hot displeasure against foolish men | E2 |
That live an atheist life involves the heaven | Q |
In tempests quits his grasp upon the winds | U2 |
And gives them all their fury bids a plague | A4 |
Kindle a fiery boil upon the skin | L |
And putrefy the breath of blooming Health | W |
He calls for Famine and the meagre fiend | I |
Blows mildew from between his shrivell'd lips | U2 |
And taints the golden ear He springs his mines | U2 |
And desolates a nation at a blast | I |
William Cowper
(1)
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