The Task: Book Vi. -- The Winter Walk At Noon Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFDGHIFJFFFFFFFK LMNOPFQRSTFUVFWXYZA2 A2A2B2A2HC2A2D2FA2E2 A2F2FFA2G2 A2H2FA2I2A2J2TK2VQFA 2FA2MA2OL2A2A2L2A2FF TA2DA2A2FM2FN2O2FFFP 2Q2G2FFL2R2S2FA2T2A2 FOFU2FV2A2W2M2FF X2U2Y2FFFA2N2FM2FTFF Z2A3A2B3FQ2L2A2FFA2F N2A2A2A2C3P2D2A2OD3A 2E3CA2A2F3A2OIFA2X2F A2A2GD3L2OFG3G2FGZ2A 2N2B2Y2FFA2H3| There is in souls a sympathy with sounds | A |
| And as the mind is pitch d the ear is pleased | B |
| With melting airs or martial brisk or grave | C |
| Some chord in unison with what we hear | D |
| Is touch d within us and the heart replies | E |
| How soft the music of those village bells | F |
| Falling at intervals upon the ear | D |
| In cadence sweet now dying all away | G |
| Now pealing loud again and louder still | H |
| Clear and sonorous as the gale comes on | I |
| With easy force it opens all the cells | F |
| Where Memory slept Wherever I have heard | J |
| A kindred melody the scene recurs | F |
| And with it all its pleasures and its pains | F |
| Such comprehensive views the spirit takes | F |
| That in a few short moments I retrace | F |
| As in a map the voyager his course | F |
| The windings of my way through many years | F |
| Short as in retrospect the journey seems | F |
| It seem d not always short the rugged path | K |
| And prospect oft so dreary and forlorn | L |
| Moved many a sigh at its disheartening length | M |
| Yet feeling present evils while the past | N |
| Faintly impress the mind or not at all | O |
| How readily we wish time spent revoked | P |
| That we might try the ground again where once | F |
| Through inexperience as we now perceive | Q |
| We miss d that happiness we might have found | R |
| Some friend is gone perhaps his son s best friend | S |
| A father whose authority in show | T |
| When most severe and mustering all its force | F |
| Was but the graver countenance of love | U |
| Whose favour like the clouds of spring might lower | V |
| And utter now and then an awful voice | F |
| But had a blessing in its darkest frown | W |
| Threatening at once and nourishing the plant | X |
| We loved but not enough the gentle hand | Y |
| That rear d us At a thoughtless age allured | Z |
| By every gilded folly we renounced | A2 |
| His sheltering side and wilfully forewent | A2 |
| That converse which we now in vain regret | A2 |
| How gladly would the man recall to life | B2 |
| The boy s neglected sire a mother too | A2 |
| That softer friend perhaps more gladly still | H |
| Might he demand them at the gates of death | C2 |
| Sorrow has since they went subdued and tamed | A2 |
| The playful humour he could now endure | D2 |
| Himself grown sober in the vale of tears | F |
| And feel a parent s presence no restraint | A2 |
| But not to understand a treasure s worth | E2 |
| Till time has stolen away the slighted good | A2 |
| Is cause of half the poverty we feel | F2 |
| And makes the world the wilderness it is | F |
| The few that pray at all pray oft amiss | F |
| And seeking grace to improve the prize they hold | A2 |
| Would urge a wiser suit than asking more | G2 |
| - | |
| The night was winter in its roughest mood | A2 |
| The morning sharp and clear But now at noon | H2 |
| Upon the southern side of the slant hills | F |
| And where the woods fence off the northern blast | A2 |
| The season smiles resigning all its rage | I2 |
| And has the warmth of May The vault is blue | A2 |
| Without a cloud and white without a speck | J2 |
| The dazzling splendour of the scene below | T |
| Again the harmony comes o er the vale | K2 |
| And through the trees I view the embattled tower | V |
| Whence all the music I again perceive | Q |
| The soothing influence of the wafted strains | F |
| And settle in soft musings as I tread | A2 |
| The walk still verdant under oaks and elms | F |
| Whose outspread branches overarch the glade | A2 |
| The roof though moveable through all its length | M |
| As the wind sways it has yet well sufficed | A2 |
| And intercepting in their silent fall | O |
| The frequent flakes has kept a path for me | L2 |
| No noise is here or none that hinders thought | A2 |
| The redbreast warbles still but is content | A2 |
| With slender notes and more than half suppress d | L2 |
| Pleased with his solitude and flitting light | A2 |
| From spray to spray where er he rests he shakes | F |
| From many a twig the pendant drops of ice | F |
| That tinkle in the wither d leaves below | T |
| Stillness accompanied with sounds so soft | A2 |
| Charms more than silence Meditation here | D |
| May think down hours to moments Here the heart | A2 |
| May give a useful lesson to the head | A2 |
| And Learning wiser grow without his books | F |
| Knowledge and Wisdom far from being one | M2 |
| Have ofttimes no connexion Knowledge dwells | F |
| In heads replete with thoughts of other men | N2 |
| Wisdom in minds attentive to their own | O2 |
| Knowledge a rude unprofitable mass | F |
| The mere materials with which Wisdom builds | F |
| Till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place | F |
| Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich | P2 |
| Knowledge is proud that he has learn d so much | Q2 |
| Wisdom is humble that he knows no more | G2 |
| Books are not seldom talismans and spells | F |
| By which the magic art of shrewder wits | F |
| Holds an unthinking multitude enthrall d | L2 |
| Some to the fascination of a name | R2 |
| Surrender judgment hoodwink d Some the style | S2 |
| Infatuates and through labyrinth and wilds | F |
| Of error leads them by a tune entranced | A2 |
| While sloth seduces more too weak to bear | T2 |
| The insupportable fatigue of thought | A2 |
| And swallowing therefore without pause or choice | F |
| The total grist unsifted husks and all | O |
| But trees and rivulets whose rapid course | F |
| Defies the check of winter haunts of deer | U2 |
| And sheepwalks populous with bleating lambs | F |
| And lanes in which the primrose ere her time | V2 |
| Peeps through the moss that clothes the hawthorn root | A2 |
| Deceive no student Wisdom there and truth | W2 |
| Not shy as in the world and to be won | M2 |
| By slow solicitation seize at once | F |
| The roving thought and fix it on themselves | F |
| - | |
| What prodigies can power divine perform | X2 |
| More grand than it produces year by year | U2 |
| And all in sight of inattentive man | Y2 |
| Familiar with the effect we slight the cause | F |
| And in the constancy of nature s course | F |
| The regular return of genial months | F |
| And renovation of a faded world | A2 |
| See nought to wonder at Should God again | N2 |
| As once in Gibeon interrupt the race | F |
| Of the undeviating and punctual sun | M2 |
| How would the world admire but speaks it less | F |
| An agency divine to make him know | T |
| His moment when to sink and when to rise | F |
| Age after age than to arrest his course | F |
| All we behold is miracle but seen | Z2 |
| So duly all is miracle in vain | A3 |
| Where now the vital energy that moved | A2 |
| While summer was the pure and subtle lymph | B3 |
| Through the imperceptible meandering veins | F |
| Of leaf and flower It sleeps and the icy touch | Q2 |
| Of unprolific winter has impress d | L2 |
| A cold stagnation on the intestine tide | A2 |
| But let the months go round a few short months | F |
| And all shall be restored These naked shoots | F |
| Barren as lances among which the wind | A2 |
| Makes wintry music sighing as it goes | F |
| Shall put their graceful foliage on again | N2 |
| And more aspiring and with ampler spread | A2 |
| Shall boast new charms and more than they have lost | A2 |
| Then each in its peculiar honours clad | A2 |
| Shall publish even to the distant eye | C3 |
| Its family and tribe Laburnum rich | P2 |
| In streaming gold syringa ivory pure | D2 |
| The scentless and the scented rose this red | A2 |
| And of an humbler growth the other tall | O |
| And throwing up into the darkest gloom | D3 |
| Of neighbouring cypress or more sable yew | A2 |
| Her silver globes light as the foamy surf | E3 |
| That the wind severs from the broken wave | C |
| The lilac various in array now white | A2 |
| Now sanguine and her beauteous head now set | A2 |
| With purple spikes pyramidal as if | F3 |
| Studious of ornament yet unresolved | A2 |
| Which hue she most approved she chose them all | O |
| Copious of flowers the woodbine pale and wan | I |
| But well compensating her sickly looks | F |
| With never cloying odours early and late | A2 |
| Hypericum all bloom so thick a swarm | X2 |
| Of flowers like flies clothing her slender rods | F |
| That scarce a leaf appears mezereon too | A2 |
| Though leafless well attired and thick beset | A2 |
| With blushing wreaths investing every spray | G |
| Alth a with the purple eye the broom | D3 |
| Yellow and bright as bullion unalloy d | L2 |
| Her blossoms and luxuriant above all | O |
| The jasmine throwing wide her elegant sweets | F |
| The deep dark green of whose unvarnish d leaf | G3 |
| Makes more conspicuous and illumines more | G2 |
| The bright profusion of her scatter d stars | F |
| These have been and these shall be in their day | G |
| And all this uniform uncolour d scene | Z2 |
| Shall be dismantled of its fleecy load | A2 |
| And flush into variety again | N2 |
| From dearth to plenty and from death to life | B2 |
| Is Nature s progress when she lectures man | Y2 |
| In heavenly truth evincing as she makes | F |
| The grand transition that there lives and works | F |
| A soul in all things and that soul is God | A2 |
| The beauties of the wilderness are | H3 |
William Cowper
(1)
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About The Task: Book Vi. -- The Winter Walk At Noon
The Task: Book Vi. -- The Winter Walk At Noon is a poem by William Cowper. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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