Sea Dreams Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKLLMNOPQRS TQQQQULLVQWSLQXLYLQQ ZQQA2B2VGTL QLC2D2TLE2C2QQ QQTF2LQQLQLG2H2LQLI2 GLTQL TQ QQKTLKQSQQPQQJ2QLLL Q LK2QXTL2Q QQQQLXM2LLQQN2QQQQQO 2QQC2LP2L G2C2QK2 N2QK2 QQQ2TD2LR2QLQQQS2LQL N2QT2 VU2F2QQQUQLQ T2TUQA city clerk but gently born and bred | A |
His wife an unknown artist's orphan child | B |
One babe was theirs a Margaret three years old | C |
They thinking that her clear germander eye | D |
Droopt in the giant factoried city gloom | E |
Came with a month's leave given them to the sea | F |
For which his gains were dock'd however small | G |
Small were his gains and hard his work besides | H |
Their slender household fortunes for the man | I |
Had risk'd his little like the little thrift | J |
Trembled in perilous places o'er a deep | K |
And oft when sitting all alone his face | L |
Would darken as he cursed his credulousness | L |
And that one unctuous mount which lured him rogue | M |
To buy strange shares in some Peruvian mine | N |
Now seaward bound for health they gain'd a coast | O |
All sand and cliff and deep inrunning cave | P |
At close of day slept woke and went the next | Q |
The Sabbath pious variers from the church | R |
To chapel where a heated pulpiteer | S |
Not preaching simple Christ to simple men | T |
Announced the coming doom and fulminated | Q |
Against the scarlet woman and her creed | Q |
For sideways up he swung his arms and shriek'd | Q |
Thus thus with violence ' ev'n as if he held | Q |
The Apocalyptic millstone and himself | U |
Were that great Angel Thus with violence | L |
Shall Babylon be cast into the sea | L |
Then comes the close ' The gentle hearted wife | V |
Sat shuddering at the ruin of a world | Q |
He at his own but when the wordy storm | W |
Had ended forth they came and paced the shore | S |
Ran in and out the long sea framing caves | L |
Drank the large air and saw but scarce believed | Q |
The sootflake of so many a summer still | X |
Clung to their fancies that they saw the sea | L |
So now on sand they walk'd and now on cliff | Y |
Lingering about the thymy promontories | L |
Till all the sails were darken'd in the west | Q |
And rosed in the east then homeward and to bed | Q |
Where she who kept a tender Christian hope | Z |
Haunting a holy text and still to that | Q |
Returning as the bird returns at night | Q |
Let not the sun go down upon your wrath ' | A2 |
Said Love forgive him ' but he did not speak | B2 |
And silenced by that silence lay the wife | V |
Remembering her dear Lord who died for all | G |
And musing on the little lives of men | T |
And how they mar this little by their feuds | L |
- | |
But while the two were sleeping a full tide | Q |
Rose with ground swell which on the foremost rocks | L |
Touching upjetted in spirts of wild sea smoke | C2 |
And scaled in sheets of wasteful foam and fell | D2 |
In vast sea cataracts ever and anon | T |
Dead claps of thunder from within the cliffs | L |
Heard thro' the living roar At this the babe | E2 |
Their Margaret cradled near them wail'd and woke | C2 |
The mother and the father suddenly cried | Q |
A wreck a wreck ' then turn'd and groaning said | Q |
- | |
Forgive How many will say 'forgive ' and find | Q |
A sort of absolution in the sound | Q |
To hate a little longer No the sin | T |
That neither God nor man can well forgive | F2 |
Hypocrisy I saw it in him at once | L |
Is it so true that second thoughts are best | Q |
Not first and third which are a riper first | Q |
Too ripe too late they come too late for use | L |
Ah love there surely lives in man and beast | Q |
Something divine to warn them of their foes | L |
And such a sense when first I fronted him | G2 |
Said 'trust him not ' but after when I came | H2 |
To know him more I lost it knew him less | L |
Fought with what seem'd my own uncharity | Q |
Sat at his table drank his costly wines | L |
Made more and more allowance for his talk | I2 |
Went further fool and trusted him with all | G |
All my poor scrapings from a dozen years | L |
Of dust and deskwork there is no such mine | T |
None but a gulf of ruin swallowing gold | Q |
Not making Ruin'd ruin'd the sea roars | L |
Ruin a fearful night ' | - |
- | |
Not fearful fair ' | - |
Said the good wife if every star in heaven | T |
Can make it fair you do but bear the tide | Q |
Had you ill dreams ' | - |
- | |
O yes ' he said I dream'd | Q |
Of such a tide swelling toward the land | Q |
And I from out the boundless outer deep | K |
Swept with it to the shore and enter'd one | T |
Of those dark caves that run beneath the cliffs | L |
I thought the motion of the boundless deep | K |
Bore through the cave and I was heaved upon it | Q |
In darkness then I saw one lovely star | S |
Larger and larger 'What a world ' I thought | Q |
'To live in ' but in moving I found | Q |
Only the landward exit of the cave | P |
Bright with the sun upon the stream beyond | Q |
And near the light a giant woman sat | Q |
All over earthy like a piece of earth | J2 |
A pickaxe in her hand then out I slipt | Q |
Into a land all of sun and blossom trees | L |
As high as heaven and every bird that sings | L |
And here the night light flickering in my eyes | L |
Awoke me ' | - |
- | |
That was then your dream ' she said | Q |
Not sad but sweet ' | - |
- | |
So sweet I lay ' said he | L |
And mused upon it drifting up the stream | K2 |
In fancy till I slept again and pieced | Q |
The broken vision for I dream'd that still | X |
The motion of the great deep bore me on | T |
And that the woman walk'd upon the brink | L2 |
I wonder'd at her strength and ask'd her of it | Q |
'It came ' she said 'by working in the mines ' | - |
O then to ask her of my shares I thought | Q |
And ask'd but not a word she shook her head | Q |
And then the motion of the current ceased | Q |
And there was rolling thunder and we reach'd | Q |
A mountain like a wall of burs and thorns | L |
But she with her strong feet up the steep hill | X |
Trod out a path I follow'd and at top | M2 |
She pointed seaward there a fleet of glass | L |
That seem'd a fleet of jewels under me | L |
Sailing along before a gloomy cloud | Q |
That not one moment ceased to thunder past | Q |
In sunshine right across its track there lay | N2 |
Down in the water a long reef of gold | Q |
Or what seem'd gold and I was glad at first | Q |
To think that in our often ransack'd world | Q |
Still so much gold was left and then I fear'd | Q |
Lest the gay navy there should splinter on it | Q |
And fearing waved my arm to warn them off | O2 |
An idle signal for the brittle fleet | Q |
I thought I could have died to save it near'd | Q |
Touch'd clink'd and clash'd and vanish'd and I woke | C2 |
I heard the clash so clearly Now I see | L |
My dream was Life the woman honest Work | P2 |
And my poor venture but a fleet of glass | L |
Wreck'd on a reef of visionary gold ' | - |
- | |
Nay ' said the kindly wife to comfort him | G2 |
You raised your arm you tumbled down and broke | C2 |
The glass with little Margaret's medicine it it | Q |
And breaking that you made and broke your dream | K2 |
A trifle makes a dream a trifle breaks ' | - |
- | |
No trifle ' groan'd the husband yesterday | N2 |
I met him suddenly in the street and ask'd | Q |
That which I ask'd the woman in my dream | K2 |
Like her he shook his head 'Show me the books ' | - |
He dodged me with a long and loose account | Q |
'The books the books ' but he he could not wait | Q |
Bound on a matter he of life and death | Q2 |
When the great Books see Daniel seven and ten | T |
Were open'd I should find he meant me well | D2 |
And then began to bloat himself and ooze | L |
All over with the fat affectionate smile | R2 |
That makes the widow lean 'My dearest friend | Q |
Have faith have faith We live by faith ' said he | L |
'And all things work together for the good | Q |
Of those' it makes me sick to quote him last | Q |
Gript my hand hard and with God bless you went | Q |
I stood like one that had received a blow | S2 |
I found a hard friend in his loose accounts | L |
A loose one in the hard grip of his hand | Q |
A curse in his God bless you then my eyes | L |
Pursued him down the street and far away | N2 |
Among the honest shoulders of the crowd | Q |
Read rascal in the motions of his back | T2 |
And scoundrel in the supple sliding knee ' | - |
- | |
Was he so bound poor soul ' said the good wife | V |
So are we all but do not call him love | U2 |
Before you prove him rogue and proved forgive | F2 |
His gain is loss for he that wrongs his friend | Q |
Wrongs himself more and ever bears about | Q |
A silent court of justice in his breast | Q |
Himself the judge and jury and himself | U |
The prisoner at the bar ever condemn'd | Q |
And that drags down his life then comes what comes | L |
Hereafter and he meant he said he meant | Q |
Perhaps he meant or partly meant you well ' | - |
- | |
'With all his conscience and one eye askew' | T2 |
Love let me quote these lines that you may learn | T |
A man is likewise counsel for himself | U |
Too often in that silent | Q |
Alfred Lord Tennyson
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