The Man Who Saw Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEDFGHIDJKDILMNOP QRDDSTLEUAVAWXYZA2B2 C2DD2E2F2G2DDB2H2I2N XA2J2K2DA2AL2M2DDD FN2LO2P2UQ2DAR2S2ADT 2DQDDRAU2M2L2DT2PV2G AW2X2Y2Z2DDDA3K2DB3C 3DT2D3

The master weavers at the enchanted loomA
Of Legend weaving long ago those talesB
Through which there wanders the grey thread of truthC
Lost in the gorgeous arras of romanceD
Tell how King Vortigern resolved to buildE
A Tower of Safety 'mid the solitudesD
That are the hem of the great druid robeF
Of Snowdon Mount of Eagles So each dayG
The builders laboured marrying stone to stoneH
But ever in the night an adversaryI
Invisible as malevolent cancelled thoseD
Cold nuptials and with impish wanton rageJ
Shattered the walls And thither from beyondK
That congress of grave mountains met like seersD
And bards august though in a rivalryI
Of silence rather than of song from whereL
The vales are not so tranced with awe nor yetM
So far below the hill tops as to feelN
Aching estrangement fortune one day broughtO
A youth whoso very brow was a commandP
His name of Merlin had not clambered thenQ
To fearsome greatness like a dusty starR
Yet ev'n thus early his subduing eyesD
Seemed to have known all things in life but tearsD
And standing where wrecked hopes bestrewed the groundS
He said to them whose toil was shards and dustT
'Search underneath your tower's foundations thereL
Are the Unbuilders busy while you buildE
The Undoers are there ' And every man obeyedU
And digging deep they found a hollow abysmA
Where waters gnawed the ribs of the Earth and sappedV
Her sinews till her frame tottered infirmA
'Where also monsters heaved their tumid bulkW
In ancient ambush and with tremors vastX
Palsied those ramparts as they yearned to rise 'Y
Blind dragon shapes of blindest darkness bornZ
That save in darkness could not live an hourA2
And touched by Light made their dull moan and diedB2
-
Such is the tale which one who chronicledC2
Old shadowy wars in sanctuaries of peaceD
Found amid crumbled pomps the hushed domainD2
Of mildew and the empire of the mothE2
Nigh on eight hundred years ago And nowF2
Out of that land where Snowdon night by nightG2
Receives the confidences of lonesome starsD
And where Carnarvon's ruthless battlementsD
Magnificently oppress the daunted tideB2
There comes no fabled Merlin son of mistH2
And brother to the twilight but a manI2
Who in a time terrifically realN
Is real as the time formed for the time '-
Not much beholden to the munificent PastX
In mind or spirit but frankly of this hourA2
No faggot of perfections angel or saintJ2
Created faultless and intolerableK2
No meeting place of all the heavenlinessesD
But eminently a man to stir and spurA2
Men to afflict them with benign alarmA
Harass their sluggish and uneager bloodL2
Till like himself they are hungry for the goalM2
A man with something of the cragginessD
Of his own mountains something of the forceD
That goads to their loud leap the mountain streamsD
-
And he too comes to bid the builders probeF
Deep underneath the Tower of Safety lestN2
A pit lie cavernous and covert thereL
A long baulked ravening emptiness a graveO2
That famishes for its expected foodP2
Nay in his hands he takes the delver's spadeU
Lays bare the hollow o'er which to build at allQ2
Were to build woe and ruin and 'stablishesD
A mightier tower bastioned so broad and firmA
In life in manhood and in womanhoodR2
Founded upon so massy a human rockS2
And with such living bulwarks against themA
Who first poured death from where the lark strews blissD
That when at last ours shall be Triumph thoughT2
Triumph perhaps too weary to rejoiceD
Save with a mournful jubilation whenQ
Hate shall reel back from these embattled wallsD
And having spent so long its hurtling boltsD
With such' poor thrift shall stand before the starR
Bankrupt of thunder then indeed shall TimeA
Add yet another name to those the worldU2
Salutes with an obeisance of the soulM2
The name of him the man of Celtic bloodL2
Whom Powers Unknown in a divine capriceD
Chose and did make their instrument wherewithT2
To save the Saxon the man all eye and handP
The man who saw and grasped and gripped and heldV2
Then shall each morrow with its yesterdayG
Vie in the honour of nobly honouring himA
Who found us blindfold by the slippery vergeW2
Of fathomless perdition and haled us backX2
And poets shall dawn in pearl and gold of speechY2
Crowning his deed with not less homage hereZ2
On English ground than yonder whence he roseD
Yonder where crash the cataracts through the chasmsD
And unto the dark tempests the dark hillsD
Offer their stubborn sides all gered but keepA3
A heart invincible and impregnableK2
While with long arm and piercing spear the seaD
Thrusts far into the valleys that of oldB3
Heard the twin raptures of the harp and swordC3
The heroic strife and the heroic stringsD
Amid the battling torrents and beneathT2
The happier peaks that without strife prevailD3

William Watson



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