What I would say about the effect of this form with this matter is what I already nestled away in my previous post: there is both a sense of confinement in the envelope rhymes (abba), which seems to me to correspond to the poem's concern with mortality (i.e., the confinement of a life-span), as the parents sputter on the speaker, as well as a sense of something (in the c rhymes) slipping that confinement--the spirit of the dying parents, which evaporates; the voice of the living son, which continues. The c lines could rhyme or not; that they do is somehow comforting, even mystical.
My suspicion is that Rose would call that "justification" BS, even though it's done for unknown Nemo rather than well-known George Herbert. But it's my reading, and it's what I would talk about if I were to teach this poem. Which isn't to say that I think Nemo planned it all like that beforehand, & in this way, maybe, I could dodge Rose's disagreement, since I wouldn't presume to legislate Nemo's intention, only to express the intellectual, as well as musical, pleasure provided by the choice of form in this poem*. However it happened in the drafting process, I think those distant c rhymes were a great insight--in some way, are the insight embodied in the poem. I guess I saw Rose as dismissing a type of formal analysis in which I frequently engage, and not just of Great Dead Poets either (certainly of Wilbur!). Of this poem, I'll go on thinking what I wrote in the above paragraph, until somebody offers a more convincing or more appealing reading of the form.
*I should say that whether the poet "planned it out beforehand" or whether the form was discovered in the process of writing strikes me as immaterial to critical discussion of it; likewise, whether the impulse was merely musical or whether the poet would have copped to a more elaborate justification. But we should be able both to appreciate the form and attempt to articulate its effect--otherwise, my whole approach is wrong, which I don't think.
Chris
[This message has been edited by Chris Childers (edited December 18, 2008).]
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