Boadicea Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCA ADBBADECBBCABC CBAEBACADECEE BDCAACBBEABFC BBBABBBBAEBBBBEAGBEA BB BDBBABABABABEAABBWhile about the shore of Mona those Neronian legionaries | A |
Burnt and broke the grove and altar of the Druid and Druidess | A |
Far in the East Boadicea standing loftily charioted | B |
Mad and maddening all that heard her in her fierce volubility | B |
Girt by half the tribes of Britain near the colony Camulodune | C |
Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters o'er a wild confederacy | A |
- | |
They that scorn the tribes and call us Britain's barbarous populaces | A |
Did they hear me would they listen did they pity me supplicating | D |
Shall I heed them in their anguish shall I brook to be supplicated | B |
Hear Icenian Catieuchlanian hear Coritanian Trinobant | B |
Must their ever ravening eagle's beak and talon annihilate us | A |
Tear the noble hear of Britain leave it gorily quivering | D |
Bark an answer Britain's raven bark and blacken innumerable | E |
Blacken round the Roman carrion make the carcase a skeleton | C |
Kite and kestrel wolf and wolfkin from the wilderness wallow in it | B |
Till the face of Bel be brighten'd Taranis be propitiated | B |
Lo their colony half defended lo their colony Camulodune | C |
There the horde of Roman robbers mock at a barbarous adversary | A |
There the hive of Roman liars worship a gluttonous emperor idiot | B |
Such is Rome and this her deity hear it Spirit of Cassivelaun | C |
- | |
Hear it Gods the Gods have heard it O Icenian O Coritanian | C |
Doubt not ye the Gods have answer'd Catieuchlanian Trinobant | B |
These have told us all their anger in miraculous utterances | A |
Thunder a flying fire in heaven a murmur heard aerially | E |
Phantom sound of blows descending moan of an enemy massacred | B |
Phantom wail of women and children multitudinous agonies | A |
Bloodily flow'd the Tamesa rolling phantom bodies of horses and men | C |
Then a phantom colony smoulder'd on the refluent estuary | A |
Lastly yonder yester even suddenly giddily tottering | D |
There was one who watch'd and told me down their statue of Victory fell | E |
Lo their precious Roman bantling lo the colony Camulodune | C |
Shall we teach it a Roman lesson shall we care to be pitiful | E |
Shall we deal with it as an infant shall we dandle it amorously | E |
- | |
Hear Icenian Catieuchlanian hear Coritanian Trinobant | B |
While I roved about the forest long and bitterly meditating | D |
There I heard them in the darkness at the mystical ceremony | C |
Loosely robed in flying raiment sang the terrible prophetesses | A |
quot Fear not isle of blowing woodland isle of silvery parapets | A |
Tho' the Roman eagle shadow thee tho' the gathering enemy narrow thee | C |
Thou shalt wax and he shall dwindle thou shalt be the mighty one yet | B |
Thine the liberty thine the glory thine the deeds to be celebrated | B |
Thine the myriad rolling ocean light and shadow illimitable | E |
Thine the lands of lasting summer many blossoming Paradises | A |
Thine the North and thine the South and thine the battle thunder of God quot | B |
So they chanted how shall Britain light upon auguries happier | F |
So they chanted in the darkness and there cometh a victory now | C |
- | |
Hear Icenian Catieuchlanian hear Coritanian Trinobant | B |
Me the wife of rich Prasutagus me the lover of liberty | B |
Me they seized and me they tortured me they lash'd and humiliated | B |
Me the sport of ribald Veterans mine of ruffian violators | A |
See they sit they hide their faces miserable in ignominy | B |
Wherefore in me burns an anger not by blood to be satiated | B |
Lo the palaces and the temple lo the colony Camulodune | B |
There they ruled and thence they wasted all the flourishing territory | B |
Thither at their will they haled the yellow ringleted Britoness | A |
Bloodily bloodily fall the battle axe unexhausted inexorable | E |
Shout Icenian Catieuchlanian shout Coritanian Trinobant | B |
Till the victim hear within and yearn to hurry precipitously | B |
Like the leaf in a roaring whirlwind like the smoke in a hurricane whirl'd | B |
Lo the colony there they rioted in the city of Cunobeline | B |
There they drank in cups of emerald there at tables of ebony lay | E |
Rolling on their purple couches in their tender effeminacy | A |
There they dwelt and there they rioted there there they dwell no more | G |
Burst the gates and burn the palaces break the works of the statuary | B |
Take the hoary Roman head and shatter it hold it abominable | E |
Cut the Roman boy to pieces in his lust and voluptuousness | A |
Lash the maiden into swooning me they lash'd and humiliated | B |
Chop the breasts from off the mother dash the brains of the little one out | B |
Up my Britons on my chariot on my chargers trample them under us ' | - |
- | |
So the Queen Boadicea standing loftily charioted | B |
Brandishing in her hand a dart and rolling glances lioness like | D |
Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters in her fierce volubility | B |
Till her people all around the royal chariot agitated | B |
Madly dash'd the darts together writhing barbarous lineaments | A |
Made the noise of frosty woodlands when they shiver in January | B |
Roar'd as when the rolling breakers boom and blanch on the precipices | A |
Yell'd as when the winds of winter tear an oak on a promontory | B |
So the silent colony hearing her tumultuous adversaries | A |
Clash the darts and on the buckler beat with rapid unanimous hand | B |
Thought on all her evil tyrannies all her pitiless avarice | A |
Till she felt the heart within her fall and flutter tremulously | B |
Then her pulses at the clamoring of her enemy fainted away | E |
Out of evil evil flourishes out of tyranny tyranny buds | A |
Ran the land with Roman slaughter multitudinous agonies | A |
Perish'd many a maid and matron many a valorous legionary | B |
Fell the colony city and citadel London Verulam Camulodune | B |
Alfred Lord Tennyson
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about Boadicea poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Best Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson