St. Telemachus Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHEIJJKLIJMNJA OPJQJRPSTAUVRWJXYJJZ A2JIXJJB2JRJJJJJC2D2 RAE2F2G2E2IJIH2XJI2J J2K2RI2L2M2JJE2F2Had the fierce ashes of some fiery peak | A |
Been hurl'd so high they ranged about the globe | B |
For day by day thro' many a blood red eve | C |
In that four hundredth summer after Christ | D |
The wrathful sunset glared against a cross | E |
Rear'd on the tumbled ruins of an old fane | F |
No longer sacred to the Sun and flamed | G |
On one huge slope beyond where in his cave | H |
The man whose pious hand had built the cross | E |
A man who never changed a word with men | I |
Fasted and pray'd Telemachus the Saint | J |
Eve after eve that haggard anchorite | J |
Would haunt the desolated fane and there | K |
Gaze at the ruin often mutter low | L |
'Vicisti Galil e' louder again | I |
Spurning a shatter'd fragment of the God | J |
'Vicisti Galil e ' but when now | M |
Bathed in that lurid crimson ask'd 'Is earth | N |
On fire to the West or is the Demon god | J |
Wroth at his fall ' and heard an answer 'Wake | A |
Thou deedless dreamer lazying out a life | O |
Of self suppression not of selfless love ' | P |
And once a flight of shadowy fighters crost | J |
The disk and once he thought a shape with wings | Q |
Came sweeping by him and pointed to the West | J |
And at his ear he heard a whisper 'Rome' | R |
And in his heart he cried ' The call of God ' | P |
And call'd arose and slowly plunging down | S |
Thro' that disastrous glory set his face | T |
By waste and field and town of alien tongue | A |
Following a hundred sunsets and the sphere | U |
Of westward wheeling stars and every dawn | V |
Struck from him his own shadow on to Rome | R |
Foot sore way worn at length he touch'd his goal | W |
The Christian city All her splendour fail'd | J |
To lure those eyes that only yearn'd to see | X |
Fleeting betwixt her column'd palace walls | Y |
The shape with wings Anon there past a crowd | J |
With shameless laughter Pagan oath and jest | J |
Hard Romans brawling of their monstrous games | Z |
He all but deaf thro' age and weariness | A2 |
And muttering to himself 'The call of God' | J |
And borne along by that full stream of men | I |
Like some old wreck on some indrawing sea | X |
Gain'd their huge Colosseum The caged beast | J |
Yell'd as he yell'd of yore for Christian blood | J |
Three slaves were trailing a dead lion away | B2 |
One a dead man He stumbled in and sat | J |
Blinded but when the momentary gloom | R |
Made by the noonday blaze without had left | J |
His aged eyes he raised them and beheld | J |
A blood red awning waver overhead | J |
The dust send up a steam of human blood | J |
The gladiators moving toward their fight | J |
And eighty thousand Christian faces watch | C2 |
Man murder man A sudden strength from heaven | D2 |
As some great shock may wake a palsied limb | R |
Turn'd him again to boy for up he sprang | A |
And glided lightly down the stairs and o'er | E2 |
The barrier that divided beast from man | F2 |
Slipt and ran on and flung himself between | G2 |
The gladiatorial swords and call'd 'Forbear | E2 |
In the great name of Him who died for men | I |
Christ Jesus ' For one moment afterward | J |
A silence follow'd as of death and then | I |
A hiss as from a wilderness of snakes | H2 |
Then one deep roar as of a breaking sea | X |
And then a shower of stones that stoned him dead | J |
And then once more a silence as of death | I2 |
His dream became a deed that woke the world | J |
For while the frantic rabble in half amaze | J2 |
Stared at him dead thro' all the nobler hearts | K2 |
In that vast Oval ran a shudder of shame | R |
The Baths the Forum gabbled of his death | I2 |
And preachers linger'd o'er his dying words | L2 |
Which would not die but echo'd on to reach | M2 |
Honorius till he heard them and decreed | J |
That Rome no more should wallow in this old lust | J |
Of Paganism and make her festal hour | E2 |
Dark with the blood of man who murder'd man | F2 |
Alfred Lord Tennyson
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