The Marriage Of Geraint Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDBEFFFGHFIJBKFFFF LMFNFFOPQRFSFRTFUVWF SFFXFQRYRSFFZA2RFVIB 2VVFC2RFVRF D2BE2VFFFFF2FG2JVH2V IF VI2B2J2VRZIHVFLVVVZH QVK2VV L2M2FVVQRVR N2FO2RP2FFRVQ2R2VF S2T2FVVQ2RFVJF RS2U2NFFS2V2D2W2VB2D 2C2FRFFFFVFFX2C2FY2H FVVI FFFRV FThe brave Geraint a knight of Arthur's court | A |
A tributary prince of Devon one | B |
Of that great Order of the Table Round | C |
Had married Enid Yniol's only child | D |
And loved her as he loved the light of Heaven | B |
And as the light of Heaven varies now | E |
At sunrise now at sunset now by night | F |
With moon and trembling stars so loved Geraint | F |
To make her beauty vary day by day | F |
In crimsons and in purples and in gems | G |
And Enid but to please her husband's eye | H |
Who first had found and loved her in a state | F |
Of broken fortunes daily fronted him | I |
In some fresh splendour and the Queen herself | J |
Grateful to Prince Geraint for service done | B |
Loved her and often with her own white hands | K |
Arrayed and decked her as the loveliest | F |
Next after her own self in all the court | F |
And Enid loved the Queen and with true heart | F |
Adored her as the stateliest and the best | F |
And loveliest of all women upon earth | L |
And seeing them so tender and so close | M |
Long in their common love rejoiced Geraint | F |
But when a rumour rose about the Queen | N |
Touching her guilty love for Lancelot | F |
Though yet there lived no proof nor yet was heard | F |
The world's loud whisper breaking into storm | O |
Not less Geraint believed it and there fell | P |
A horror on him lest his gentle wife | Q |
Through that great tenderness for Guinevere | R |
Had suffered or should suffer any taint | F |
In nature wherefore going to the King | S |
He made this pretext that his princedom lay | F |
Close on the borders of a territory | R |
Wherein were bandit earls and caitiff knights | T |
Assassins and all flyers from the hand | F |
Of Justice and whatever loathes a law | U |
And therefore till the King himself should please | V |
To cleanse this common sewer of all his realm | W |
He craved a fair permission to depart | F |
And there defend his marches and the King | S |
Mused for a little on his plea but last | F |
Allowing it the Prince and Enid rode | F |
And fifty knights rode with them to the shores | X |
Of Severn and they past to their own land | F |
Where thinking that if ever yet was wife | Q |
True to her lord mine shall be so to me | R |
He compassed her with sweet observances | Y |
And worship never leaving her and grew | R |
Forgetful of his promise to the King | S |
Forgetful of the falcon and the hunt | F |
Forgetful of the tilt and tournament | F |
Forgetful of his glory and his name | Z |
Forgetful of his princedom and its cares | A2 |
And this forgetfulness was hateful to her | R |
And by and by the people when they met | F |
In twos and threes or fuller companies | V |
Began to scoff and jeer and babble of him | I |
As of a prince whose manhood was all gone | B2 |
And molten down in mere uxoriousness | V |
And this she gathered from the people's eyes | V |
This too the women who attired her head | F |
To please her dwelling on his boundless love | C2 |
Told Enid and they saddened her the more | R |
And day by day she thought to tell Geraint | F |
But could not out of bashful delicacy | V |
While he that watched her sadden was the more | R |
Suspicious that her nature had a taint | F |
- | |
At last it chanced that on a summer morn | D2 |
They sleeping each by either the new sun | B |
Beat through the blindless casement of the room | E2 |
And heated the strong warrior in his dreams | V |
Who moving cast the coverlet aside | F |
And bared the knotted column of his throat | F |
The massive square of his heroic breast | F |
And arms on which the standing muscle sloped | F |
As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone | F2 |
Running too vehemently to break upon it | F |
And Enid woke and sat beside the couch | G2 |
Admiring him and thought within herself | J |
Was ever man so grandly made as he | V |
Then like a shadow past the people's talk | H2 |
And accusation of uxoriousness | V |
Across her mind and bowing over him | I |
Low to her own heart piteously she said | F |
- | |
'O noble breast and all puissant arms | V |
Am I the cause I the poor cause that men | I2 |
Reproach you saying all your force is gone | B2 |
I AM the cause because I dare not speak | J2 |
And tell him what I think and what they say | V |
And yet I hate that he should linger here | R |
I cannot love my lord and not his name | Z |
Far liefer had I gird his harness on him | I |
And ride with him to battle and stand by | H |
And watch his mightful hand striking great blows | V |
At caitiffs and at wrongers of the world | F |
Far better were I laid in the dark earth | L |
Not hearing any more his noble voice | V |
Not to be folded more in these dear arms | V |
And darkened from the high light in his eyes | V |
Than that my lord through me should suffer shame | Z |
Am I so bold and could I so stand by | H |
And see my dear lord wounded in the strife | Q |
And maybe pierced to death before mine eyes | V |
And yet not dare to tell him what I think | K2 |
And how men slur him saying all his force | V |
Is melted into mere effeminacy | V |
O me I fear that I am no true wife ' | - |
- | |
Half inwardly half audibly she spoke | L2 |
And the strong passion in her made her weep | M2 |
True tears upon his broad and naked breast | F |
And these awoke him and by great mischance | V |
He heard but fragments of her later words | V |
And that she feared she was not a true wife | Q |
And then he thought 'In spite of all my care | R |
For all my pains poor man for all my pains | V |
She is not faithful to me and I see her | R |
Weeping for some gay knight in Arthur's hall ' | - |
Then though he loved and reverenced her too much | N2 |
To dream she could be guilty of foul act | F |
Right through his manful breast darted the pang | O2 |
That makes a man in the sweet face of her | R |
Whom he loves most lonely and miserable | P2 |
At this he hurled his huge limbs out of bed | F |
And shook his drowsy squire awake and cried | F |
'My charger and her palfrey ' then to her | R |
'I will ride forth into the wilderness | V |
For though it seems my spurs are yet to win | Q2 |
I have not fallen so low as some would wish | R2 |
And thou put on thy worst and meanest dress | V |
And ride with me ' And Enid asked amazed | F |
'If Enid errs let Enid learn her fault ' | - |
But he 'I charge thee ask not but obey ' | - |
Then she bethought her of a faded silk | S2 |
A faded mantle and a faded veil | T2 |
And moving toward a cedarn cabinet | F |
Wherein she kept them folded reverently | V |
With sprigs of summer laid between the folds | V |
She took them and arrayed herself therein | Q2 |
Remembering when first he came on her | R |
Drest in that dress and how he loved her in it | F |
And all her foolish fears about the dress | V |
And all his journey to her as himself | J |
Had told her and their coming to the court | F |
- | |
For Arthur on the Whitsuntide before | R |
Held court at old Caerleon upon Usk | S2 |
There on a day he sitting high in hall | U2 |
Before him came a forester of Dean | N |
Wet from the woods with notice of a hart | F |
Taller than all his fellows milky white | F |
First seen that day these things he told the King | S2 |
Then the good King gave order to let blow | V2 |
His horns for hunting on the morrow morn | D2 |
And when the King petitioned for his leave | W2 |
To see the hunt allowed it easily | V |
So with the morning all the court were gone | B2 |
But Guinevere lay late into the morn | D2 |
Lost in sweet dreams and dreaming of her love | C2 |
For Lancelot and forgetful of the hunt | F |
But rose at last a single maiden with her | R |
Took horse and forded Usk and gained the wood | F |
There on a little knoll beside it stayed | F |
Waiting to hear the hounds but heard instead | F |
A sudden sound of hoofs for Prince Geraint | F |
Late also wearing neither hunting dress | V |
Nor weapon save a golden hilted brand | F |
Came quickly flashing through the shallow ford | F |
Behind them and so galloped up the knoll | X2 |
A purple scarf at either end whereof | C2 |
There swung an apple of the purest gold | F |
Swayed round about him as he galloped up | Y2 |
To join them glancing like a dragon fly | H |
In summer suit and silks of holiday | F |
Low bowed the tributary Prince and she | V |
Sweet and statelily and with all grace | V |
Of womanhood and queenhood answered him | I |
'Late late Sir Prince ' she said 'later than we ' | - |
'Yea noble Queen ' he answered 'and so late | F |
That I but come like you to see the hunt | F |
Not join it ' 'Therefore wait with me ' she said | F |
'For on this little knoll if anywhere | R |
There is good chance that we shall hear the hounds | V |
Here often they break covert at our feet ' | - |
- | |
And while they listened for the dist | F |
Alfred Lord Tennyson
(3)
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