Pentameter, Rhyme and Metre

Robert Browning, with his
archaic verse exalting language,
attachments and memory for
literary posterity becomes the
class-puzzling example, to be
studied, carefully parsed - and
class - emulate his poetic method.

An impossible, head-banging
assignment, but through her
despair comes the plot: a stone-hewn
castle, large, brooding, darkly impressive,
but outside, oh outside, its grounds
green and fresh and burgeoning with
aromatic shrubs, glorious floral displays,
trees in fruit, so beloved of birds.

Within the dark confines of a
chamber overlooking the splendid
garden, an old man sits, lost in
memory.  Each day he calls for the
gardener to report on the hale
beauty of the garden below, his
very especial treasured memory.

As motes of stardust dance in the
light that the disk of the afternoon sun
beams through the dusky aura of
the chamber, the gardener mutely nods,
listening attentively while the blind
old man speak of his pleasure as
he looks down upon the garden.

It is his beloved wife's special
place, though in life she never
once saw it.  Her grieving, bereaved
husband had it created to reflect
the plants and flowers she most
loved, and now her bright, pure
spirit wanders the garden, by day
and by night, viewed from above.

She speaks to her husband of the
changes she would like and he
duly informs the silently nodding
gardener.  Each day this drama
plays out till the old man lapses
finally into silence, turns his
sightless eyes again to the window.

The gardener departs, for he has
much to do.  He too recalls his
mother's love of flowers.  Gazing
through the humble cottage door,
he knows no garden exists.  His
father daily stirs the dregs of
haunting memory that never was.

Write that in rhyme, she sighs, where
to begin?  How to express the beauty
and the melancholy of it all, the nature
of nature that brings love, devotion and
flowers to humankind, then impulsively,
uncaring, makes it all vanish, removing
the beauty and the familiar comfort,
leaving us to recall in dour solitude?