Yardley Oak Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPAQRS TUVWXYZA2B2C2D2QYYE2 YF2G2H2I2J2K2L2YYM2N 2YO2P2Q2TR2S2EYT2U2V 2YW2YX2YYYYHYAY2YYYZ 2A3YB3B2C3D3E3YF3Y2G 3G2YH3QI3J3K3M2L3M3Y YYN3I3YO3QP3GYYU2Q3Z 2R3YYYS3T3U3YYYV2V3Q 3W3YYYA2X3B2U2Y3YYMK 3Z3A4B4EY3QAYC4J2A4B 2YYYYB4A2D4YYYY3Z2E4Survivor 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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