Boadicea Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCA ADBBADECBBCABC CBAEBACADECEE BDCAACBBEABFC BBBABBBBAEBBBBEAGBEA BB BDBBABABABABEAABB| While 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)
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