Demeter And Persephone Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNHOMAMH PQ AAIRSMRAMTM MUVWXYQRZYA2B2RMC2D2 IE2 MF2G2H2RUMRKRKI2RRJ2 MK2L2M2RG2RMG2N2RO2M G2RJ2RG2MMM MMP2TH2RRRRIQ2P2R2 RMG2S2RIS2RRMMS2MT2M G2RRS2A2G2O MHU2P2V2RS2S2MS2HRW2 MMRG2S2X2MX2RMS2G2WP 2S2S2RA2Faint as a climate changing bird that flies | A |
All night across the darkness and at dawn | B |
Falls on the threshold of her native land | C |
And can no more thou camest O my child | D |
Led upward by the God of ghosts and dreams | E |
Who laid thee at Eleusis dazed and dumb | F |
With passing thro' at once from state to state | G |
Until I brought thee hither that the day | H |
When here thy hands let fall the gather'd flower | I |
Might break thro' clouded memories once again | J |
On thy lost self A sudden nightingale | K |
Saw thee and flash'd into a frolic of song | L |
And welcome and a gleam as of the moon | M |
When first she peers along the tremulous deep | N |
Fled wavering o'er thy face and chased away | H |
That shadow of a likeness to the king | O |
Of shadows thy dark mate Persephone | M |
Queen of the dead no more my child Thine eyes | A |
Again were human godlike and the Sun | M |
Burst from a swimming fleece of winter gray | H |
And robed thee in his day from head to feet | P |
Mother and I was folded in thine arms | Q |
- | |
Child those imperial disimpassion'd eyes | A |
Awed even me at first thy mother eyes | A |
That oft had seen the serpent wanded power | I |
Draw downward into Hades with his drift | R |
Of fickering spectres lighted from below | S |
By the red race of fiery Phlegethon | M |
But when before have Gods or men beheld | R |
The Life that had descended re arise | A |
And lighted from above him by the Sun | M |
So mighty was the mother's childless cry | T |
A cry that ran thro' Hades Earth and Heaven | M |
- | |
So in this pleasant vale we stand again | M |
The field of Enna now once more ablaze | U |
With flowers that brighten as thy footstep falls | V |
All flowers but for one black blur of earth | W |
Left by that closing chasm thro' which the car | X |
Of dark Aidoneus rising rapt thee hence | Y |
And here my child tho' folded in thine arms | Q |
I feel the deathless heart of motherhood | R |
Within me shudder lest the naked glebe | Z |
Should yawn once more into the gulf and thence | Y |
The shrilly whinnyings of the team of Hell | A2 |
Ascending pierce the glad and songful air | B2 |
And all at once their arch'd necks midnight maned | R |
Jet upward thro' the mid day blossom No | M |
For see thy foot has touch'd it all the space | C2 |
Of blank earth baldness clothes itself afresh | D2 |
And breaks into the crocus purple hour | I |
That saw thee vanish | E2 |
- | |
Child when thou wert gone | M |
I envied human wives and nested birds | F2 |
Yea the cubb'd lioness went in search of thee | G2 |
Thro' many a palace many a cot and gave | H2 |
Thy breast to ailing infants in the night | R |
And set the mother waking in amaze | U |
To find her sick one whole and forth again | M |
Among the wail of midnight winds and cried | R |
Where is my loved one Wherefore do ye wail | K |
And out from all the night an answer shrill'd | R |
We know not and we know not why we wail | K |
I climb'd on all the cliffs of all the seas | I2 |
And ask'd the waves that moan about the world | R |
Where do ye make your moaning for my child | R |
And round from all the world the voices came | J2 |
We know not and we know not why we moan | M |
Where and I stared from every eagle peak | K2 |
I thridded the black heart of all the woods | L2 |
I peer'd thro' tomb and cave and in the storms | M2 |
Of Autumn swept across the city and heard | R |
The murmur of their temples chanting me | G2 |
Me me the desolate Mother Where and turn'd | R |
And fled by many a waste forlorn of man | M |
And grieved for man thro' all my grief for thee | G2 |
The jungle rooted in his shatter'd hearth | N2 |
The serpent coil'd about his broken shaft | R |
The scorpion crawling over naked skulls | O2 |
I saw the tiger in the ruin'd fane | M |
Spring from his fallen God but trace of thee | G2 |
I saw not and far on and following out | R |
A league of labyrinthine darkness came | J2 |
On three gray heads beneath a gleaming rift | R |
Where and I heard one voice from all the three | G2 |
We know not for we spin the lives of men | M |
And not of Gods and know not why we spin | M |
There is a Fate beyond us Nothing knew | M |
- | |
Last as the likeness of a dying man | M |
Without his knowledge from him flits to warn | M |
A far off friendship that he comes no more | P2 |
So he the God of dreams who heard my cry | T |
Drew from thyself the likeness of thyself | H2 |
Without thy knowledge and thy shadow past | R |
Before me crying The Bright one in the highest | R |
Is brother of the Dark one in the lowest | R |
And Bright and Dark have sworn that I the child | R |
Of thee the great Earth Mother thee the Power | I |
That lifts her buried life from loom to bloom | Q2 |
Should be for ever and for evermore | P2 |
The Bride of Darkness | R2 |
- | |
So the Shadow wail'd | R |
Then I Earth Goddess cursed the Gods of Heaven | M |
I would not mingle with their feasts to me | G2 |
Their nectar smack'd of hemlock on the lips | S2 |
Their rich ambrosia tasted aconite | R |
The man that only lives and loves an hour | I |
Seem'd nobler than their hard Eternities | S2 |
My quick tears kill'd the flower my ravings hush'd | R |
The bird and lost in utter grief I fail'd | R |
To send my life thro' olive yard and vine | M |
And golden grain my gift to helpless man | M |
Rain rotten died the wheat the barley spears | S2 |
Were hollow husk'd the leaf fell and the sun | M |
Pale at my grief drew down before his time | T2 |
Sickening and Aetna kept her winter snow | M |
Then He the brother of this Darkness He | G2 |
Who still is highest glancing from his height | R |
On earth a fruitless fallow when he miss'd | R |
The wonted steam of sacrifice the praise | S2 |
And prayer of men decreed that thou should'st dwell | A2 |
For nine white moons of each whole year with me | G2 |
Three dark ones in the shadow with thy King | O |
- | |
Once more the reaper in the gleam of dawn | M |
Will see me by the landmark far away | H |
Blessing his field or seated in the dusk | U2 |
Of even by the lonely threshing floor | P2 |
Rejoicing in the harvest and the grange | V2 |
Yet I Earth Goddess am but ill content | R |
With them who still are highest Those gray heads | S2 |
What meant they by their Fate beyond the Fates | S2 |
But younger kindlier Gods to bear us down | M |
As we bore down the Gods before us Gods | S2 |
To quench not hurl the thunderbolt to stay | H |
Not spread the plague the famine Gods indeed | R |
To send the noon into the night and break | W2 |
The sunless halls of Hades into Heaven | M |
Till thy dark lord accept and love the Sun | M |
And all the Shadow die into the Light | R |
When thou shalt dwell the whole bright year with me | G2 |
And souls of men who grew beyond their race | S2 |
And made themselves as Gods against the fear | X2 |
Of Death and Hell and thou that hast from men | M |
As Queen of Death that worship which is Fear | X2 |
Henceforth as having risen from out the dead | R |
Shalt ever send thy life along with mine | M |
From buried grain thro' springing blade and bless | S2 |
Their garner'd Autumn also reap with me | G2 |
Earth mother in the harvest hymns of Earth | W |
The worship which is Love and see no more | P2 |
The Stone the Wheel the dimly glimmering lawns | S2 |
Of that Elysium all the hateful fires | S2 |
Of torment and the shadowy warrior glide | R |
Along the silent field of Asphodel | A2 |
Alfred Lord Tennyson
(1)
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