T.S. Eliot's"Spleen" a little help please?

[Morvak]

Spleen

Sunday: this satisfied procession
Of definite Sunday faces;
Bonnets, silk hats, and conscious graces
In repetition that displaces
Your mental self-possession
By this unwarranted digression.

Evening, lights, and tea!
Children and cats in the alley;
Dejection unable to rally
Against this dull conspiracy.

And Life, a little bald and gray,
Languid, fastidious, and bland,
Waits, hat and gloves in hand,
Punctilious of tie and suit
(Somewhat impatient of delay)
On the doorstep of the Absolute.

I don't understand the form of this poem.

The first and last verse, the rhymes are odd to me, and out of place.
The middle verse seems OK.

I know not every line in every poem has to rhyme line 1 with 2, or, 1
with 4 and 2 with 3, and then repeat all over again. ( i know that
many forms of poetry do exist).

But in this poem, what I 'see' rhyming is:

first verse:
line 1 with 5 and 6
line 2 with 3 and 4

second verse:
1 with 4
2 with 3

final verse:
1 with 5
2 with 3
4 with 6

When I first read this poem, I thought the final verse would end up
rhyming like the first, but it doesn't.

It's like Eliot is purposefully throwing us off with the final verse?
Am I right?

Line 5 in the parentheses throughs me off or is the 'problem' to me.

[Thomas Keske]

As a one-eyed mad poet, I would be happy to tell
you all about spleens, kidneys,brains, livers,
the pancreas, etc, but do not as such deal in
rhyme schemes- only schemes involving the undermining
of overlords and causing their circuits to overload.

I can perhaps help a bit more with poetic concerns about
"meter", if we are talking about piezoelectric transducers.

I have provided a couple references below, that will
hopefully be helpful.

Tom Keske
=================================================

2. POCKET NUCLEAR RADIATION MONITORS AND DETECTORS
Carry a Nuclear Radiation Hazard Alert Meter
in your pocket! CALL 1 800 523 0515
Information Hot-Line. Emergency Response Teams,
First Responders, ...
www.antirad.com/

3. Vibro-Meter Nuclear Accelerometers
and Dynamic Pressure Transducers
Vibro-Meter offers unique piezoelectric transducers
or operation inside the primary circuit of nuclear reactors.
www.vibro-meter.com/space/nuclear.html

[George Dance]

Post by Morvak
Spleen
Sunday: this satisfied procession
Of definite Sunday faces;
Bonnets, silk hats, and conscious graces
In repetition that displaces
Your mental self-possession
By this unwarranted digression.
Evening, lights, and tea!
Children and cats in the alley;
Dejection unable to rally
Against this dull conspiracy.
And Life, a little bald and gray,
Languid, fastidious, and bland,
Waits, hat and gloves in hand,
Punctilious of tie and suit
(Somewhat impatient of delay)
On the doorstep of the Absolute.
I don't understand the form of this poem.
The first and last verse, the rhymes are odd to me, and out of place.
The middle verse seems OK.
I know not every line in every poem has to rhyme line 1 with 2, or, 1
with 4 and 2 with 3, and then repeat all over again. ( i know that
many forms of poetry do exist).
line 1 with 5 and 6
line 2 with 3 and 4
1 with 4
2 with 3
1 with 5
2 with 3
4 with 6
When I first read this poem, I thought the final verse would end up
rhyming like the first, but it doesn't.
It's like Eliot is purposefully throwing us off with the final verse?
Am I right?

All that Eliot has done is shift LL 14 & 15, to change the effect of
L16. A rhyming couplet tends to sound comic, and Eliot's usually are
in a wry sort of way (see Prufrock). Case in point, LL 5 & 6:

Your mental self-possession
By this unwarranted digression.

Similarly, if the third stanza had ended:

Punctilious of tie and suit
On the doorstep of the Absolute.

That would have ended the poem on a similar wryly comic note. I'd say
that Eliot altered the rhyme scheme to avoid that effect.

Post by Morvak
Line 5 in the parentheses throughs me off or is the 'problem' to me.

Looking through Eliot's college poems -
http://www.theworld.com/~raparker/exploring/tseliot/works/poems/eliot-harvard-poems.html

- this looks like the first time that Eliot departed from a rhyming
convention for the sake of a poem's sense. It's a very minor step
towards the free verse of Prufrock et al, but it does look like his
first step in that direction.