Elegy To The Memory Of An Unfortunate Lady Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEE FGHHHHIIHHJJ EEKKHH LMNNOOPPHHHHMMHHKK MMQRMMMMSSKKHHTTMMMM MM UUMMVV WWHHMMGO| What beck'ning ghost along the moon light shade | A |
| Invites my steps and points to yonder glade | A |
| 'Tis she but why that bleeding bosom gor'd | B |
| Why dimly gleams the visionary sword | B |
| Oh ever beauteous ever friendly tell | C |
| Is it in heav'n a crime to love too well | C |
| To bear too tender or too firm a heart | D |
| To act a lover's or a Roman's part | D |
| Is there no bright reversion in the sky | E |
| For those who greatly think or bravely die | E |
| - | |
| Why bade ye else ye pow'rs her soul aspire | F |
| Above the vulgar flight of low desire | G |
| Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes | H |
| The glorious fault of angels and of gods | H |
| Thence to their images on earth it flows | H |
| And in the breasts of kings and heroes glows | H |
| Most souls 'tis true but peep out once an age | I |
| Dull sullen pris'ners in the body's cage | I |
| Dim lights of life that burn a length of years | H |
| Useless unseen as lamps in sepulchres | H |
| Like eastern kings a lazy state they keep | J |
| And close confin'd to their own palace sleep | J |
| - | |
| From these perhaps ere nature bade her die | E |
| Fate snatch'd her early to the pitying sky | E |
| As into air the purer spirits flow | K |
| And sep'rate from their kindred dregs below | K |
| So flew the soul to its congenial place | H |
| Nor left one virtue to redeem her race | H |
| - | |
| But thou false guardian of a charge too good | L |
| Thou mean deserter of thy brother's blood | M |
| See on these ruby lips the trembling breath | N |
| These cheeks now fading at the blast of death | N |
| Cold is that breast which warm'd the world before | O |
| And those love darting eyes must roll no more | O |
| Thus if eternal justice rules the ball | P |
| Thus shall your wives and thus your children fall | P |
| On all the line a sudden vengeance waits | H |
| And frequent hearses shall besiege your gates | H |
| There passengers shall stand and pointing say | H |
| While the long fun'rals blacken all the way | H |
| Lo these were they whose souls the furies steel'd | M |
| And curs'd with hearts unknowing how to yield | M |
| Thus unlamented pass the proud away | H |
| The gaze of fools and pageant of a day | H |
| So perish all whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow | K |
| For others' good or melt at others' woe | K |
| - | |
| What can atone oh ever injur'd shade | M |
| Thy fate unpitied and thy rites unpaid | M |
| No friend's complaint no kind domestic tear | Q |
| Pleas'd thy pale ghost or grac'd thy mournful bier | R |
| By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd | M |
| By foreign hands thy decent limbs compos'd | M |
| By foreign hands thy humble grave adorn'd | M |
| By strangers honour'd and by strangers mourn'd | M |
| What though no friends in sable weeds appear | S |
| Grieve for an hour perhaps then mourn a year | S |
| And bear about the mockery of woe | K |
| To midnight dances and the public show | K |
| What though no weeping loves thy ashes grace | H |
| Nor polish'd marble emulate thy face | H |
| What though no sacred earth allow thee room | T |
| Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb | T |
| Yet shall thy grave with rising flow'rs be drest | M |
| And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast | M |
| There shall the morn her earliest tears bestow | M |
| There the first roses of the year shall blow | M |
| While angels with their silver wings o'ershade | M |
| The ground now sacred by thy reliques made | M |
| - | |
| So peaceful rests without a stone a name | U |
| What once had beauty titles wealth and fame | U |
| How lov'd how honour'd once avails thee not | M |
| To whom related or by whom begot | M |
| A heap of dust alone remains of thee | V |
| 'Tis all thou art and all the proud shall be | V |
| - | |
| Poets themselves must fall like those they sung | W |
| Deaf the prais'd ear and mute the tuneful tongue | W |
| Ev'n he whose soul now melts in mournful lays | H |
| Shall shortly want the gen'rous tear he pays | H |
| Then from his closing eyes thy form shall part | M |
| And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart | M |
| Life's idle business at one gasp be o'er | G |
| The Muse forgot and thou belov'd no more | O |
Alexander Pope
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