Yvor Winters

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On A View Of Pasadena From The Hills Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEEFFGGHH HHHHIIJJKK LLMMNNO OPPQQRRSSHHTTUU VWHHXXYYZZHHCCA2A2 CCB2B2C2C2DD D2D2HHVWE2D2JJC2C2

From the high terrace porch I watch the dawnA
No light appears though dark has mostly goneA
Sunk from the cold and monstrous stone The hillsB
Lie naked but not light The darkness spillsB
Down the remoter gulleys pooled will stayC
Too low to melt not yet alive with dayC
Below the windows the lawn matted deepD
Under its close cropped tips with dewy sleepD
Gives off a faint hush all its plushy swarmE
Alive with coolness reaching to be warmE
Gray windows at my back the massy frameF
Dull with the blackness that has not a nameF
But down below the garden is still youngG
Of five years growth perhaps and terrace hungG
Drop by slow drop of seeping concrete wallsH
Such are the bastions of our pastoralsH
-
-
Here are no palms They once lined country waysH
Where old white houses glared down dusty daysH
With small round towers blunt headed through small treesH
Those towers are now the hiving place of beesH
The palms were coarse their leaves hung thick with dustI
The roads were muffled deep But now deep rustI
Has fastened on the wheels that labored thenJ
Peace to all such and to all sleeping menJ
I lived my childhood there a passive dreamK
In the expanse of that recessive schemeK
-
-
Slow air slow fire O deep delay of TimeL
That summer crater smoked like slaking limeL
The hills so dry so dense the underbrushM
That where I pushed my way the giant hushM
Was changed to soft explosion as the sageN
Broke down to powdered ash the sift of ageN
And fell along my path a shadowy riftO
-
-
On these rocks now no burning ashes driftO
Mowed lawn has crept along the granite benchP
The yellow blossoms of acacia drenchP
The dawn with pollen and with waxen greenQ
The long leaves of the eucalypti screenQ
The closer hills from view lithe tall and fineR
And nobly clad with youth they bend and shineR
The small dark pool jutting with living rockS
Trembles at every atmospheric shockS
Blurred to its depth with the cold living oozeH
From cloudy caves heavy with summer dewsH
The shyest and most tremulous beings stirT
The pulsing of their fins a lucent blurT
That like illusion glances off the viewU
The pulsing mouths like metronomes are trueU
-
-
This is my father s house no homestead hereV
That I shall live in but a shining sphereW
Of glass and glassy moments frail surpriseH
My father s phantasy of ParadiseH
Which melts upon his death which he attainedX
With loss of heart for every step he gainedX
Too firmly gentle to displace the greatY
He crystallized this vision somewhat lateY
Forbidden now to climb the garden stairZ
He views the terrace from a window chairZ
His friends hard shaken by some twenty yearsH
Tremble with palsy and with senile fearsH
In their late middle age gone cold and grayC
Fine men now broken That the vision stayC
They spend astutely their depleted breathA2
With tired ironic faces wait for deathA2
-
-
Below the garden the hills fold awayC
Deep in the valley a mist fine as sprayC
Ready to shatter into spinning lightB2
Conceals the city at the edge of nightB2
The city on the tremendous valley floorC2
Draws its dream deeper for an instant moreC2
Superb on solid loam and breathing deepD
Poised for a moment at the edge of sleepD
-
-
Cement roads mark the hills wide bending freeD2
Of cliff and headland Dropping toward the seaD2
Through suburb after suburb vast ravinesH
Swell to the summer drone of fine machinesH
The driver melting down the distance hereV
May cast in flight the faint hoof of a deerW
Or pass the faint head set perplexedlyE2
And man made stone outgrows the living treeD2
And at its rising air is shaken menJ
Are shattered and the tremor swells againJ
Extending to the naked salty shoreC2
Rank with the sea which crumbles evermoreC2

Yvor Winters



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