To Ireland Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABACADEEDD FGFGFHIIJ KLKLKMAAMM NONONPQQPP RQRQROSSOO TUTUTVQQV WXYXWZTTZZ QQQQQDA2A2DD B2RB2RB2WOOC2C2 D2QD2QD2VQQVV YE2YE2YF2FFF2F2 G2QG2QG2H2GGH2What ails you Sister Erin that your face | A |
Is like your mountains still bedewed with tears | B |
As though some ancient sorrow or disgrace | A |
Some unforgettable wrong from far off years | C |
Done to your name or wreaked upon your race | A |
Broods in your heart and shadows all your mind | D |
So that no change of Season nor the voice | E |
Of hopeful Time who bids the sad rejoice | E |
Can lift your gloom but you to kind unkind | D |
Keep moaning with the wave and wailing with the wind | D |
- | |
Come let us sit upon yon cliff we twain | F |
Whence we may gaze across your soft green Isle | G |
Girt by the strong immeasurable main | F |
That see looks up and sweetens to a smile | G |
And you shall talk to me of all your pain | F |
Through deep blue eyes and dark unbraided tresses | H |
Hooded by wimple that your own hands weaved | I |
When you and Winter last together grieved | I |
While far beneath our feet the fast foam presses | J |
Round bluff and creek and bay and seabird sung to nesses '' | - |
- | |
Then half withholding yielding half her gaze | K |
She smoothed her kirtle under her and clasped | L |
Her hands about her knees as one who prays | K |
Watching the clambering billows as they grasped | L |
At slippery rocks where wild goats may not graze | K |
Then fell back foiled shivered to spray and smoke | M |
And I could see the warm blood of her race | A |
Crimson beneath her weather beaten face | A |
As though her heart would break her voice would choke | M |
In accents harsh with hate and brimmed with sobs she spoke | M |
- | |
They came across the sea with greed of spoil | N |
And drove me hither and thither from fen to foam | O |
Reaving and burning till the blackened soil | N |
Waxed bitter barren as the brine they clomb | O |
Sterile to seed and thankless unto toil | N |
Harried and hunted fleeing through the land | P |
I hid among the caves the woods the hills | Q |
Where the mist curdles and the blind gust shrills | Q |
Suckling my hate and sharpening my brand | P |
My heart against their heart my hand against their hand | P |
- | |
And ever as I fled they ever pursued | R |
They drove away my cattle and my flocks | Q |
And left me me a Mother to claw for food | R |
'Mong ocean boulders and the brackish rocks | Q |
Where sea hogs wallow and gorged cormorants brood | R |
Unroofed my hut set the sere thatch aflame | O |
Scattered my hearth fire to the wintry air | S |
Made what was bare before stretch yet more bare | S |
I waxing wilder more they strove to tame | O |
To force and guile alike implacably the same | O |
- | |
They would not suffer me to weep or pray | T |
Upon the altar of my Saints they trod | U |
They banned my Faith they took my Heaven away | T |
And tried to rob me of my very God | U |
And when I sued them leave me where I lay | T |
And get them hence still still they would not go | V |
They reft the spindle from my famished hands | Q |
My kith and kin they drove to other lands | Q |
Widowed and orphaned me And now you know | V |
Why all my face is wet and all my voice is woe '' | - |
- | |
I crept a little nearer and I laid | W |
My hand on hers and fondled it with mine | X |
And Listen dear Sister Erin '' soft I said | Y |
Not to the moaning of the salt sea brine | X |
Nor to the melancholy crooning made | W |
By thoughts attuned to Sorrow's ancient song | Z |
But to the music of a mellower day | T |
Forgive Forget lest harsher lips should say | T |
Like your turf fire your rancour smoulders long | Z |
Now let Oblivion strew Time's ashes o'er this wrong | Z |
- | |
The robber bands that filled the Isle with groans | Q |
Were long since clamped and prisoned in their graves | Q |
The flesh hath dried and shrivelled from their bones | Q |
Their wild war standards rotted from their staves | Q |
Their name is nought 'Tis thus that Time atones | Q |
For all the griefs man fastens on his kind | D |
The days were dire his passions swift and fell | A2 |
His very Heaven was but a sterner Hell | A2 |
His love was thraldom hatred black and blind | D |
As headstrong as the wave as wayward as the wind | D |
- | |
Nor did alone you suffer You too dealt | B2 |
Full many a stroke too fierce to be subdued | R |
Till you had made the fangs of vengeance felt | B2 |
Mercy and truce you spurned and fed the feud | R |
Of Celt with Saxon Saxon against Celt | B2 |
Till lust enforced whatever law forbade | W |
Nay do not linger on that painful dream | O |
But turn and smile as when a silvery gleam | O |
Dimples your loughs that whilom seemed so sad | C2 |
And runs along the wave and glistens and is glad | C2 |
- | |
We own our fault the greater so we now | D2 |
For balance of that wrong would make amends | Q |
Lift the low wimple from your clouded brow | D2 |
Give me your gaze and say that we are friends | Q |
And be your mountains witness of that vow | D2 |
Your dewy dingles white with blossoming sloe | V |
Your tawny torrents tumbling to the sea | Q |
For You are far the fairest of the Three | Q |
And we can never never let you go | V |
Long as your warm heart beats long as your bright eyes glow | V |
- | |
The Triune Flag none now save Tyrants dread | Y |
That with Imperial peace protects the world | E2 |
Hath by the sinewy sons you bore and bred | Y |
Round the wide globe been carried and unfurled | E2 |
Where danger greatest they it was who led | Y |
And stormed death rather than be backward driven | F2 |
Now gaze no more across the western main | F |
Whose barren furrows hope still ploughs in vain | F |
Turn Eastward where through clouds by sunrise riven | F2 |
England holds out her hand and craves to be forgiven | F2 |
- | |
Live your own life but ever at our side | G2 |
Have your own Heaven but blend your prayer with ours | Q |
Remain your own fair self to bridegroom bride | G2 |
Veiled in your mist and diamonded with showers | Q |
We twain love linked whom nothing can divide | G2 |
Look up From Slievemore's brow to Dingle's shore | H2 |
From Inagh's lake to Innisfallen's Isle | G |
And Garriffe's glen the land is one green smile | G |
The dolphins gambol and the laverocks soar | H2 |
Lift up your heart and live enthralled to grief no more '' | - |
Alfred Austin
(1)
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