Sisyphus Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIDJKLMJJ NDJDOD OJDPDJQDJRSTDUJDVJJJ JWWXPDOD DDDDJDDYDDDDDDDDDPDP ZJJZ A2DB2DC2JDPD2JJJJE2J DMF2DDDG2| Midway his upward unavailing course | A |
| Sate Sisyphus his back against his load | B |
| Halting a moment from that task of doom | C |
| Adown his swollen cheeks ran streams of sweat | D |
| Dripping from thick drenched locks and watery beads | E |
| Gathered and stood on his stupendous limbs | F |
| The sinews of his arm like gnarled knots | G |
| On hollow bark of legendary oak | H |
| Credentials of incalculable years | I |
| Bulged up and in his horny hands outspread | D |
| Upon his wrinkled knees the arching veins | J |
| Glittered like tempered steel His stertorous breath | K |
| Moaned like to bellows in cyclopean forge | L |
| Wherewith in smithy subterranean | M |
| Against the Gods rebellious demigods | J |
| Fashion their molten ineffectual bolts | J |
| - | |
| But when asudden swift on angry flash | N |
| Rumbled imperious thunder overhead | D |
| At the commanding mandate Sisyphus | J |
| Bulkily rising straightened limbs relaxed | D |
| And turned him yet again unto his task | O |
| Mumbling the while habitual lament | D |
| - | |
| Why was I chosen for this hateful task | O |
| Fantastically futile which the Gods | J |
| Lay on their victim for their own disport | D |
| Rather a thousand times upon the wheel | P |
| Would I Ixion like be racked or lift | D |
| The tantalising gourd cup to my lips | J |
| I was no wickeder than they and I | Q |
| Founded Ephyra in a stony land | D |
| Raised monolithic temples to the Gods | J |
| And made the name of Corinth glorious from | R |
| Peloponnesus unto Attica | S |
| Was it a crime to be Ulysses' sire | T |
| By sportive Anticlea ere she wed | D |
| Laertes bringing him a Royal heir | U |
| Yearning for whom when Circe and her lures | J |
| From Ithaca withheld his bark she died | D |
| If such to me imputed be a crime | V |
| Then all the Gods are bestial criminals | J |
| Lustful adulterous meretricious Gods | J |
| What more was my offence Was it because | J |
| I from the clustered sister Pleiades | J |
| Lured Merope to earth to share my love | W |
| Not an ephemeral but strong nuptialled love | W |
| Whereat the Gods envying a mortal's joy | X |
| Darkened her light in Heaven and vengefully | P |
| In me infused her immortality | D |
| That I might strain for ever at the task | O |
| Of aiding upward downward destined world | D |
| - | |
| If mortals were but once by doom allowed | D |
| To limit their ambition and abide | D |
| On some material or majestic height | D |
| But onward upward ever are they urged | D |
| By the half God within their blood to pass | J |
| Beyond the flaming barriers of the world | D |
| Where the inexorable sentries stand | D |
| To drive them back and me unwilling drudge | Y |
| Forced downward by the weight I upward rolled | D |
| When to the very pinnacle of Art | D |
| Majestically lovely for restrained | D |
| Hellenic minds from barbarous gropings towered | D |
| The beast in mortals sensuously craved | D |
| For craft more carnal Goddesses undraped | D |
| In marble to such use recalcitrant | D |
| Satyrs and fauns licentious comedy | D |
| Provocative of laughter or of lust | D |
| Dethroning the Ideal for the Real | P |
| When the stern Roman on the world imposed | D |
| By forceful dominance the Reign of Law | P |
| Then did the East with tribute undermine | Z |
| The male won Empire and barbarian hordes | J |
| Rent the Imperial marble from its limbs | J |
| And revelled in the wreck of its decline | Z |
| - | |
| O but now now now | A2 |
| Heavier the load weightier than ever yet | D |
| For men infatuated now conceive | B2 |
| Eliminating Spirit they will find | D |
| In matter immaterialised the germ | C2 |
| Fountain and origin of all that moves | J |
| But behind Fate there is another Fate | D |
| And yet another undiscoverable | P |
| Yet Man again illusioned presses on | D2 |
| Fondling the fancy he will shortly pierce | J |
| Unto the generating source of things | J |
| The Atom atomless whereat the Gods | J |
| Shake with ironic laughter since themselves | J |
| Know it not neither do they seek to know | E2 |
| Aware above them there are other Gods | J |
| May be one sole impenetrable God | D |
| Never created never dying One | M |
| With the unbounded Universe Himself | F2 |
| The soul and substance of Eternity | D |
| That is my one last hope that He will free | D |
| My body from this pagan servitude | D |
| And with omnipotent mercifulness merge | G2 |
| My Being into His '' | - |
Alfred Austin
(1)
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