The Sultan's Palace Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CBCB BDBE FGFG HIHI BIBB HJHK BHBH BIBI BLBL BHBH BDBD MBMB NONO BGBG IPIQ RSRS EIEI TGTG UVUV BIBI HIHIMy spirit only lived to look on Beauty's face | A |
As only when they clasp the arms seem served aright | B |
As in their flesh inheres the impulse to embrace | A |
To gaze on Loveliness was my soul's appetite | B |
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I have roamed far in search white road and plunging bow | C |
Were keys in the blue doors where my desire was set | B |
Obedient to their lure my lips and laughing brow | C |
The hill showers and the spray of many seas have wet | B |
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Hot are enamored hands the fragrant zone unbound | B |
To leave no dear delight unfelt unfondled o'er | D |
The will possessed my heart to girdle Earth around | B |
With their insatiate need to wonder and adore | E |
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The flowers in the fields the surf upon the sands | F |
The sunset and the clouds it turned to blood and wine | G |
Were shreds of the thin veil behind whose beaded strands | F |
A radiant visage rose serene august divine | G |
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A noise of summer wind astir in starlit trees | H |
A song where sensual love's delirium rose and fell | I |
Were rites that moved my soul more than the devotee's | H |
When from the blazing choir rings out the altar bell | I |
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I woke amid the pomp of a proud palace writ | B |
In tinted arabesque on walls that gems o'erlay | I |
The names of caliphs were who once held court in it | B |
Their baths and bowers were mine to dwell in for a day | B |
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Their robes and rings were mine to draw from shimmering trays | H |
Brocades and broidered silks topaz and tourmaline | J |
Their turban cloths to wind in proud capricious ways | H |
And fasten plumes and pearls and pendent sapphires in | K |
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I rose far music drew my steps in fond pursuit | B |
Down tessellated floors and towering peristyles | H |
Through groves of colonnades fair lamps were blushing fruit | B |
On seas of green mosaic soft rugs were flowery isles | H |
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And there were verdurous courts that scalloped arches wreathed | B |
Where fountains plashed in bowls of lapis lazuli | I |
Through enigmatic doors voluptuous accents breathed | B |
And having Youth I had their Open Sesame | I |
- | |
I paused where shadowy walls were hung with cloths of gold | B |
And tinted twilight streamed through storied panes above | L |
In lamplit alcoves deep as flowers when they unfold | B |
Soft cushions called to rest and fragrant fumes to love | L |
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I hungered at my hand delicious dainties teemed | B |
Fair pyramids of fruit pastry in sugared piles | H |
I thirsted in cool cups inviting vintage beamed | B |
Sweet syrups from the South brown muscat from the isles | H |
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I yearned for passionate Love faint gauzes fell away | B |
Pillowed in rosy light I found my heart's desire | D |
Over the silks and down her florid beauty lay | B |
As over orient clouds the sunset's coral fire | D |
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Joys that had smiled afar a visionary form | M |
Behind the ranges hid remote and rainbow dyed | B |
Drew near unto my heart a wonder soft and warm | M |
To touch to stroke to clasp to sleep and wake beside | B |
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Joy that where summer seas and hot horizons shone | N |
Had been the outspread arms I gave my youth to seek | O |
Drew near awhile its pulse strove sweetly with my own | N |
Awhile I felt its breath astir upon my cheek | O |
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I was so happy there so fleeting was my stay | B |
What wonder if assailed with vistas so divine | G |
I only lived to search and sample them the day | B |
When between dawn and dusk the sultan's courts were mine | G |
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Speak not of other worlds of happiness to be | I |
As though in any fond imaginary sphere | P |
Lay more to tempt man's soul to immortality | I |
Than ripens for his bliss abundant now and here | Q |
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Flowerlike I hope to die as flowerlike was my birth | R |
Rooted in Nature's just benignant law like them | S |
I want no better joys than those that from green Earth | R |
My spirit's blossom drew through the sweet body's stem | S |
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I see no dread in death no horror to abhor | E |
I never thought it else than but to cease to dwell | I |
Spectator and resolve most naturally once more | E |
Into the dearly loved eternal spectacle | I |
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Unto the fields and flowers this flesh I found so fair | T |
I yield do you dear friend over your rose crowned wine | G |
Murmur my name some day as though my lips were there | T |
And frame your mouth as though its blushing kiss were mine | G |
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Yea where the banquet hall is brilliant with young men | U |
You whose bright youth it might have thrilled my breast to know | V |
Drink and perhaps my lips insatiate even then | U |
Of lips to hang upon may find their loved ones so | V |
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Unto the flush of dawn and evening I commend | B |
This immaterial self and flamelike part of me | I |
Unto the azure haze that hangs at the world's end | B |
The sunshine on the hills the starlight on the sea | I |
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Unto angelic Earth whereof the lives of those | H |
Who love and dream great dreams and deeply feel may be | I |
The elemental cells and nervules that compose | H |
Its divine consciousness and joy and harmony | I |
Alan Seeger
(1)
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