A Tale Of True Love Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBDD EFEFGG HIHIHH JKJKLL MDMDNN OPOPQQ ERERSS TUTUEE BVBVWW XLXVYY HHHHV XDXDZZ A2B2A2B2C2C2 D2E2D2BD2D2 BA2BA2II F2E2F2E2G2G2 VE2V D2D2 VD2VD2H2I2 BD2BD2J2J2 BK2BK2D2D2 D2VD2VD2D2 HL2HL2E2E2 D2L2D2L2D2D2 BL2BL2A2A2 VVVVD2D2 HHHHD2D2 D2A2D2A2VV D2A2D2A2M2M2 VL2VL2D2D2Not in the mist of legendary ages | A |
Which in sad moments men call long ago | B |
And people with bards heroes saints and sages | C |
And virtues vanished since we do not know | B |
But here to day wherein we all grow old | D |
But only we this Tale of True Love will be told | D |
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For Earth to tender wisdom grows not older | E |
But to young hearts remains for ever young | F |
Spring no less winsome Winter winds no colder | E |
Than when tales first were told songs first were sung | F |
And all things always still remain the same | G |
That touch the human heart and feed Love's vestal flame | G |
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And if you have ears to hear and eyes for seeing | H |
Maidens there be as were there in your youth | I |
That round you breathe and move and have their being | H |
Fair as Greek Helen pure as Hebrew Ruth | I |
With Heaven appointed poets quick to sing | H |
Of blameless warrior brave and wisdom counselled king | H |
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And tho' in this our day youth love and beauty | J |
Are far too often glorified as slave | K |
Of every sense except the sense of Duty | J |
In fables that dishonour and deprave | K |
The old world Creeds still linger taught us by | L |
The pious lips that mute now in the churchyard lie | L |
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And this true simple tale in verse as simple | M |
Will from its prelude to its close be told | D |
As free from artifice as is the dimple | M |
In childhood's cheek whereby is age consoled | D |
And haply it may soothe some sufferer's lot | N |
When noisier notes are husht and newer ones forgot | N |
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And think not of your graciousness I pray you | O |
Who tells the tale is one of those who deem | P |
That love will beckon only to betray you | O |
Life an illusion happiness a dream | P |
Only that noble grief is happier far | Q |
Than transitory lusts and feverish raptures are | Q |
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It was the season when aggressive Winter | E |
That had so long invested the sealed world | R |
With frosts that starve and hurricanes that splinter | E |
And rain hail blizzard mercilessly hurled | R |
Made one forlorn last effort to assail | S |
Ere Spring's relieving spears came riding on the gale | S |
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For Amazonian March with breast uncovered | T |
Blew loud her clarion and the wintry host | U |
Took courage fresh and lingeringly hovered | T |
Round vale and hill wherever needed most | U |
And ever and anon the raging weather | E |
And wolfish winds re formed and onward swept together | E |
- | |
Loud bellowing to the thunder clouds to follow | B |
But all in vain for here there everywhere | V |
Primrose battalions seizing ridge and hollow | B |
Dingle and covert wind flowers wild that dare | V |
Beyond their seeming bluebells without sound | W |
And scentless violets peeped to spring up from the ground | W |
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And covering their advance swift scouring showers | X |
Gathering dispersing skirmished through the sky | L |
Till squadrons of innumerable flowers | X |
Thronged through the land far as you could descry | V |
Then Winter smitten with despair and dread | Y |
Folded his fluttering tents sounded retreat and fled | Y |
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Whereat the land so long beleaguered seeing | H |
The peril past and Winter's iron ring | H |
Broken and all his cohorts norward fleeing | H |
Came forth to welcome and embrace the Spring | H |
Spring the Deliverer and from sea and shore | V |
Rose the rejoicing shout See April dawns once more '' | - |
- | |
Radiant she came attended by her zephyrs | X |
And forth from dusky stall and hurdled fold | D |
Poured lowing kine and sleeky coated heifers | X |
To roam at will through pastures green and gold | D |
Where unweaned lambs from morning until night | Z |
Raced round their nibbling dams and frolicked with delight | Z |
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High up on larch and cypress merle and mavis | A2 |
Vociferated love lays sweet as strong | B2 |
And the bird dear to Homer and to Hafiz | A2 |
Proclaimed the joy of sadness all night long | B2 |
Vowed each new Spring more Spring like than the last | C2 |
And triumphed over Time futile iconoclast | C2 |
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Then imperceptibly and slowly rounded | D2 |
Slim girlish April into maiden May | E2 |
Whereat still louder everywhere resounded | D2 |
The cuckoo's call and throstle's roundelay | B |
It was as though in meadow chase and wood | D2 |
God made the world anew and saw that it was good | D2 |
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Then feudal Avoncourt the stern and stately | B |
Whose dawn deep hidden in undated days | A2 |
Not like those palaces erected lately | B |
Whose feet swift crumble and whose face decays | A2 |
Defieth Time's insatiable tooth | I |
Relaxed grave gaze and wore the countenance of youth | I |
- | |
It had beheld kings and proud empires vanish | F2 |
Male sceptres shattered princedoms pass away | E2 |
Norman Plantagenet Lombard Swabian Spanish | F2 |
Rise rule then totter and topple from their sway | E2 |
York and Lancastrian Rose unfold and bloom | G2 |
Then canker and decay and vanish in the tomb | G2 |
- | |
It faces the four winds with like demeanour | V |
Norward as Southernward as though to say | E2 |
Blow from some other stronger and still keener | V |
Wherefrom you will and I will face that way '' | - |
And round it as you roam to gaze perplexed | D2 |
Each side seems loveliest till you look upon the next | D2 |
- | |
Its present seeming unto ages Tudor | V |
It owes by unnamed unknown hands designed | D2 |
Who planned and worked amid a folk deemed ruder | V |
But who with grace enduring strength combined | D2 |
Like sturdy oak with all its leaves still on | H2 |
When foliage from elm and sycamore have gone | I2 |
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Upon its delicate lofty jutting portal | B |
Imaginative minds and hands have wrought | D2 |
Of dead artificers once deemed immortal | B |
From Southern climes by kings and magnates brought | D2 |
When architects and sculptors smiled in scorn | J2 |
On plain defensive days and called the world reborn | J2 |
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But time hath mellowed mullion roof and gable | B |
Stone work without and wainscotting within | K2 |
And nigh them oaken timbered barn and stable | B |
Lowlier withal of countenance akin | K2 |
Cluster for in times olden meek and proud | D2 |
Being nearer much than now their kinship was avowed | D2 |
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From it slope woodlands and long alleys shaded | D2 |
Saving that all around it and more near | V |
Stretches wild chase by ploughshare uninvaded | D2 |
Where roam rough cattle and unherded deer | V |
That look up as you pass from brackened sod | D2 |
Then flee with step as fleet as that whereon they trod | D2 |
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Through vale below from many a source unfailing | H |
A river flows where deft hands cast the line | L2 |
Well stocked with wary trout and bolder grayling | H |
Through smooth fat pastures dotted o'er with kine | L2 |
League after league the water winds away | E2 |
Oft turning as though loth from Avoncourt to stray | E2 |
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It was in the sweet season that hath ravished | D2 |
The virgin heart since ever love began | L2 |
A maiden upon whom had Nature lavished | D2 |
Each fair gift given to maiden or to man | L2 |
Roamed all alone through windings of its wood | D2 |
Seeking the way to where Avoncourt haply stood | D2 |
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Onward in search of it she went but slowly | B |
For who could hasten through so fresh a scene | L2 |
With violets paved the lovelier because lowly | B |
And pallid primroses on ground of green | L2 |
While overhead each bird that hath a voice | A2 |
Seemed in its own blithe notes to revel and rejoice | A2 |
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And ever and anon she gazed around her | V |
Or knelt to gather some appealing flower | V |
And to dear God the Father and the Founder | V |
Of all things good the all protecting Power | V |
Breathed a brief prayer of thanks within her breast | D2 |
Feeling she roamed in Heaven on earth made manifest | D2 |
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Sometimes she broke into spontaneous singing | H |
Such as fond nurse to fretful babe might sing | H |
Whose close as sudden is as its beginning | H |
Herself she seemed a portion of the Spring | H |
Which if she went would lose the chiefest part | D2 |
Of that which charms the gaze and captivates the heart | D2 |
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At length she passed from out these paths embowered | D2 |
To where meek does young fawns and shaggy beeves | A2 |
Ranged amid bracken but the House that towered | D2 |
Full nigh at hand for intercepting leaves | A2 |
She still descried not so advancing under | V |
An arch of hornbeam stood in husht astonied wonder | V |
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For there it rose as silent and abstracted | D2 |
As though it nothing shared or had to say | A2 |
With those that shadow like have lived and acted | D2 |
Upon the stage we call our later day | A2 |
From passing passions thoughtfully aloof | M2 |
Through age not pride without lamenting or reproof | M2 |
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Then slowly timid tentative explorer | V |
Longing to see yet dreading to be seen | L2 |
Asudden living figure rose before her | V |
Of manly mould and meditative mien | L2 |
Modern withal with air of ancient port | D2 |
As if the same blood | D2 |
Alfred Austin
(1)
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