Yardley Oak Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPAQRS TUVWXYZA2B2C2D2QYYE2 YF2G2H2I2J2K2L2YYM2N 2YO2P2Q2TR2S2EYT2U2V 2YW2YX2YYYYHYAY2YYYZ 2A3YB3B2C3D3E3YF3Y2G 3G2YH3QI3J3K3M2L3M3Y YYN3I3YO3QP3GYYU2Q3Z 2R3YYYS3T3U3YYYV2V3Q 3W3YYYA2X3B2U2Y3YYMK 3Z3A4B4EY3QAYC4J2A4B 2YYYYB4A2D4YYYY3Z2E4| Survivor sole and hardly such of all | A |
| That once lived here thy brethren at my birth | B |
| Since which I number threescore winters past | C |
| A shattered veteran hollow trunked perhaps | D |
| As now and with excoriate forks deform | E |
| Relics of ages Could a mind imbued | F |
| With truth from heaven created thing adore | G |
| I might with reverence kneel and worship thee | H |
| It seems idolatry with some excuse | I |
| When our forefather Druids in their oaks | J |
| Imagined sanctity The conscience yet | K |
| Unpurified by an authentic act | L |
| Of amnesty the meed of blood divine | M |
| Loved not the light but gloomy into gloom | N |
| Of thickest shades like Adam after taste | O |
| Of fruit proscribed as to a refuge fled | P |
| Thou wast a bauble once a cup and ball | A |
| Which babes might play with and the thievish jay | Q |
| Seeking her food with ease might have purloined | R |
| The auburn nut that held thee swallowing down | S |
| Thy yet close folded latitude of boughs | T |
| And all thine embryo vastness at a gulp | U |
| But Fate thy growth decreed autumnal rains | V |
| Beneath thy parent tree mellowed the soil | W |
| Designed thy cradle and a skipping dear | X |
| With pointed hoof dibbling the glebe prepared | Y |
| The soft receptacle in which secure | Z |
| Thy rudiments should sleep the winter through | A2 |
| So Fancy dreams Disprove it if ye can | B2 |
| Ye reasoners broad awake whose busy search | C2 |
| Of argument employed too oft amiss | D2 |
| Sifts half the pleasures of short life away | Q |
| Thou fell'st mature and in the loamy clod | Y |
| Swelling with vegetative force instinct | Y |
| Did burst thine egg as theirs the fabled Twins | E2 |
| Now stars two lobes protruding paired exact | Y |
| A leaf succeeded and another leaf | F2 |
| And all the elements thy puny growth | G2 |
| Fostering propitious thou becamest a twig | H2 |
| Who lived when thou wast such Oh couldst thou speak | I2 |
| As in Dodona once thy kindred trees | J2 |
| Oracular I would not curious ask | K2 |
| The future best unknown but at thy mouth | L2 |
| Inquisitive the less ambiguous past | Y |
| By thee I might correct erroneous oft | Y |
| The clock of history facts and events | M2 |
| Timing more punctual unrecorded facts | N2 |
| Recovering and misstated setting right | Y |
| Desperate attempt till trees shall speak again | O2 |
| Time made thee what thou wast king of the woods | P2 |
| And Time hath made thee what thou art a cave | Q2 |
| For owls to roost in Once thy spreading boughs | T |
| O'erhung the champaign and the numerous flocks | R2 |
| That grazed it stood beneath that ample cope | S2 |
| Uncrowded yet safe sheltered from the storm | E |
| No flock frequents thee now Thou hast outlived | Y |
| Thy popularity and art become | T2 |
| Unless verse rescue thee awhile a thing | U2 |
| Forgotten as the foliage of thy youth | V2 |
| While thus through all the stages thou hast pushed | Y |
| Of treeship first a seedling hid in grass | W2 |
| Then twig then sapling and as century rolled | Y |
| Slow after century a giant bulk | X2 |
| Of girth enormous with moss cushioned root | Y |
| Upheaved above the soil and sides embossed | Y |
| With prominent wens globose till at last | Y |
| The rottenness which time is charged to inflict | Y |
| On other mighty ones found also thee | H |
| What exhibitions various hath the world | Y |
| Witnessed of mutability in all | A |
| That we account most durable below | Y2 |
| Change is the diet on which all subsist | Y |
| Created changeable and change at last | Y |
| Destroys them Skies uncertain now the heat | Y |
| Transmitting cloudless and the solar beam | Z2 |
| Now quenching in a boundless sea of clouds | A3 |
| Calm and alternate storm moisture and drought | Y |
| Invigorate by turns the springs of life | B3 |
| In all that live plant animal and man | B2 |
| And in conclusion mar them Nature's threads | C3 |
| Fine passing thought e'en in her coarsest works | D3 |
| Delight in agitation yet sustain | E3 |
| The force that agitates not unimpaired | Y |
| But worn by frequent impulse to the cause | F3 |
| Of their best tone their dissolution owe | Y2 |
| Thought cannot spend itself comparing still | G3 |
| The great and little of thy lot thy growth | G2 |
| From almost nullity into a state | Y |
| Of matchless grandeur and declension thence | H3 |
| Slow into such magnificent decay | Q |
| Time was when settling on thy leaf a fly | I3 |
| Could shake thee to the root and time has been | J3 |
| When tempests could not At thy firmest age | K3 |
| Thou hadst within thy bole solid contents | M2 |
| That might have ribbed the sides and planked the deck | L3 |
| Of some flagged admiral and tortuous arms | M3 |
| The shipwright's darling treasure didst present | Y |
| To the four quartered winds robust and bold | Y |
| Warped into tough knee timber many a load | Y |
| But the axe spared thee In those thriftier days | N3 |
| Oaks fell not hewn by thousands to supply | I3 |
| The bottomless demands of contest waged | Y |
| For senatorial honours Thus to Time | O3 |
| The task was left to whittle thee away | Q |
| With his sly scythe whose ever nibbling edge | P3 |
| Noiseless an atom and an atom more | G |
| Disjoining from the rest has unobserved | Y |
| Achieved a labour which had far and wide | Y |
| By man performed made all the forest ring | U2 |
| Embowelled now and of thy ancient self | Q3 |
| Possessing nought but the scooped rind that seem | Z2 |
| An huge throat calling to the clouds for drink | R3 |
| Which it would give in rivulets to thy root | Y |
| Thou temptest none but rather much forbidd'st | Y |
| The feller's toil which thou couldst ill requite | Y |
| Yet is thy root sincere sound as the rock | S3 |
| A quarry of stout spurs and knotted fangs | T3 |
| Which crooked into a thousand whimsies clasp | U3 |
| The stubborn soil and hold thee still erect | Y |
| So stands a kingdom whose foundation yet | Y |
| Fails not in virtue and in wisdom laid | Y |
| Though all the superstructure by the tooth | V2 |
| Pulverised of venality a shell | V3 |
| Stands now and semblance only of itself | Q3 |
| Thine arms have left thee Winds have rent them off | W3 |
| Long since and rovers of the forest wild | Y |
| With bow and shaft have burnt them Some have left | Y |
| A splintered stump bleached to a snowy white | Y |
| And some memorial none where once they grew | A2 |
| Yet life still lingers in thee and puts forth | X3 |
| Proof not contemptible of what she can | B2 |
| Even where death predominates The spring | U2 |
| Finds thee not less alive to her sweet force | Y3 |
| Than yonder upstarts of the neighbouring wood | Y |
| So much thy juniors who their birth received | Y |
| Half a millennium since the date of thine | M |
| But since although well qualified by age | K3 |
| To teach no spirit dwells in thee nor voice | Z3 |
| May be expected from thee seated here | A4 |
| On thy distorted root with hearers none | B4 |
| Or prompter save the scene I will perform | E |
| Myself the oracle and will discourse | Y3 |
| In my own ear such matter as I may | Q |
| One man alone the father of us all | A |
| Drew not his life from woman never gazed | Y |
| With mute unconsciousness of what he saw | C4 |
| On all around him learned not by degrees | J2 |
| Nor owed articulation to his ear | A4 |
| But moulded by his Maker into man | B2 |
| At once upstood intelligent surveyed | Y |
| All creatures with precision understood | Y |
| Their purport uses properties assigned | Y |
| To each his name significant and filled | Y |
| With love and wisdom rendered back to Heaven | B4 |
| In praise harmonious the first air he drew | A2 |
| He was excused the penalties of dull | D4 |
| Minority No tutor charged his hand | Y |
| With the thought tracing quill or tasked his mind | Y |
| With problems History not wanted yet | Y |
| Leaned on her elbow watching Time whose course | Y3 |
| Eventful should supply her with a theme | Z2 |
| E4 |
William Cowper
(1)
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