The Princess (part I) Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCD EFGHIJKLEMBNOPQOORSO TOUOOVWVXYZA2OVB2C2 VOD2E2VOF2G2H2V VOOOVVI2 OJ2VVK2F2L2VC2F2 HOTM2C2G2VVHOF2V N2F2O2V P2V VQ2VVOB2VA2OO R2VVVOVOVVS2OOT OVOF2OG2VT2OOXVVF2U2 OXKV2W2VVVE2VX2OOS2V 2OOJ2Y2HF2XF2L2OF2I2 VOVF2O TF2OOVVVZ2Q2A3OVOT VVOQVB3VOC3B3D3E3F2O OVOOOVVVVF2F3Z2OG3OO VOOH3OOVVOOTF2Q2OI3F 2 J3K3VVH3Q2VE3VOVV VL3V F2H2 VM3N3OO3VH3P3H3 VOI2I2OVOX2OVOE3E3OA prince I was blue eyed and fair in face | A |
Of temper amorous as the first of May | B |
With lengths of yellow ringlet like a girl | C |
For on my cradle shone the Northern star | D |
- | |
There lived an ancient legend in our house | E |
Some sorcerer whom a far off grandsire burnt | F |
Because he cast no shadow had foretold | G |
Dying that none of all our blood should know | H |
The shadow from the substance and that one | I |
Should come to fight with shadows and to fall | J |
For so my mother said the story ran | K |
And truly waking dreams were more or less | L |
An old and strange affection of the house | E |
Myself too had weird seizures Heaven knows what | M |
On a sudden in the midst of men and day | B |
And while I walked and talked as heretofore | N |
I seemed to move among a world of ghosts | O |
And feel myself the shadow of a dream | P |
Our great court Galen poised his gilt head cane | Q |
And pawed his beard and muttered 'catalepsy' | O |
My mother pitying made a thousand prayers | O |
My mother was as mild as any saint | R |
Half canonized by all that looked on her | S |
So gracious was her tact and tenderness | O |
But my good father thought a king a king | T |
He cared not for the affection of the house | O |
He held his sceptre like a pedant's wand | U |
To lash offence and with long arms and hands | O |
Reached out and picked offenders from the mass | O |
For judgment | V |
Now it chanced that I had been | W |
While life was yet in bud and blade bethrothed | V |
To one a neighbouring Princess she to me | X |
Was proxy wedded with a bootless calf | Y |
At eight years old and still from time to time | Z |
Came murmurs of her beauty from the South | A2 |
And of her brethren youths of puissance | O |
And still I wore her picture by my heart | V |
And one dark tress and all around them both | B2 |
Sweet thoughts would swarm as bees about their queen | C2 |
- | |
But when the days drew nigh that I should wed | V |
My father sent ambassadors with furs | O |
And jewels gifts to fetch her these brought back | D2 |
A present a great labour of the loom | E2 |
And therewithal an answer vague as wind | V |
Besides they saw the king he took the gifts | O |
He said there was a compact that was true | F2 |
But then she had a will was he to blame | G2 |
And maiden fancies loved to live alone | H2 |
Among her women certain would not wed | V |
- | |
That morning in the presence room I stood | V |
With Cyril and with Florian my two friends | O |
The first a gentleman of broken means | O |
His father's fault but given to starts and bursts | O |
Of revel and the last my other heart | V |
And almost my half self for still we moved | V |
Together twinned as horse's ear and eye | I2 |
- | |
Now while they spake I saw my father's face | O |
Grow long and troubled like a rising moon | J2 |
Inflamed with wrath he started on his feet | V |
Tore the king's letter snowed it down and rent | V |
The wonder of the loom through warp and woof | K2 |
From skirt to skirt and at the last he sware | F2 |
That he would send a hundred thousand men | L2 |
And bring her in a whirlwind then he chewed | V |
The thrice turned cud of wrath and cooked his spleen | C2 |
Communing with his captains of the war | F2 |
- | |
At last I spoke 'My father let me go | H |
It cannot be but some gross error lies | O |
In this report this answer of a king | T |
Whom all men rate as kind and hospitable | M2 |
Or maybe I myself my bride once seen | C2 |
Whate'er my grief to find her less than fame | G2 |
May rue the bargain made ' And Florian said | V |
'I have a sister at the foreign court | V |
Who moves about the Princess she you know | H |
Who wedded with a nobleman from thence | O |
He dying lately left her as I hear | F2 |
The lady of three castles in that land | V |
Through her this matter might be sifted clean ' | - |
And Cyril whispered 'Take me with you too ' | - |
Then laughing 'what if these weird seizures come | N2 |
Upon you in those lands and no one near | F2 |
To point you out the shadow from the truth | O2 |
Take me I'll serve you better in a strait | V |
I grate on rusty hinges here ' but 'No ' | - |
Roared the rough king 'you shall not we ourself | P2 |
Will crush her pretty maiden fancies dead | V |
In iron gauntlets break the council up ' | - |
- | |
But when the council broke I rose and past | V |
Through the wild woods that hung about the town | Q2 |
Found a still place and plucked her likeness out | V |
Laid it on flowers and watched it lying bathed | V |
In the green gleam of dewy tasselled trees | O |
What were those fancies wherefore break her troth | B2 |
Proud looked the lips but while I meditated | V |
A wind arose and rushed upon the South | A2 |
And shook the songs the whispers and the shrieks | O |
Of the wild woods together and a Voice | O |
Went with it 'Follow follow thou shalt win ' | - |
- | |
Then ere the silver sickle of that month | R2 |
Became her golden shield I stole from court | V |
With Cyril and with Florian unperceived | V |
Cat footed through the town and half in dread | V |
To hear my father's clamour at our backs | O |
With Ho from some bay window shake the night | V |
But all was quiet from the bastioned walls | O |
Like threaded spiders one by one we dropt | V |
And flying reached the frontier then we crost | V |
To a livelier land and so by tilth and grange | S2 |
And vines and blowing bosks of wilderness | O |
We gained the mother city thick with towers | O |
And in the imperial palace found the king | T |
- | |
His name was Gama cracked and small his voice | O |
But bland the smile that like a wrinkling wind | V |
On glassy water drove his cheek in lines | O |
A little dry old man without a star | F2 |
Not like a king three days he feasted us | O |
And on the fourth I spake of why we came | G2 |
And my bethrothed 'You do us Prince ' he said | V |
Airing a snowy hand and signet gem | T2 |
'All honour We remember love ourselves | O |
In our sweet youth there did a compact pass | O |
Long summers back a kind of ceremony | X |
I think the year in which our olives failed | V |
I would you had her Prince with all my heart | V |
With my full heart but there were widows here | F2 |
Two widows Lady Psyche Lady Blanche | U2 |
They fed her theories in and out of place | O |
Maintaining that with equal husbandry | X |
The woman were an equal to the man | K |
They harped on this with this our banquets rang | V2 |
Our dances broke and buzzed in knots of talk | W2 |
Nothing but this my very ears were hot | V |
To hear them knowledge so my daughter held | V |
Was all in all they had but been she thought | V |
As children they must lose the child assume | E2 |
The woman then Sir awful odes she wrote | V |
Too awful sure for what they treated of | X2 |
But all she is and does is awful odes | O |
About this losing of the child and rhymes | O |
And dismal lyrics prophesying change | S2 |
Beyond all reason these the women sang | V2 |
And they that know such things I sought but peace | O |
No critic I would call them masterpieces | O |
They mastered me At last she begged a boon | J2 |
A certain summer palace which I have | Y2 |
Hard by your father's frontier I said no | H |
Yet being an easy man gave it and there | F2 |
All wild to found an University | X |
For maidens on the spur she fled and more | F2 |
We know not only this they see no men | L2 |
Not even her brother Arac nor the twins | O |
Her brethren though they love her look upon her | F2 |
As on a kind of paragon and I | I2 |
Pardon me saying it were much loth to breed | V |
Dispute betwixt myself and mine but since | O |
And I confess with right you think me bound | V |
In some sort I can give you letters to her | F2 |
And yet to speak the truth I rate your chance | O |
Almost at naked nothing ' | - |
Thus the king | T |
And I though nettled that he seemed to slur | F2 |
With garrulous ease and oily courtesies | O |
Our formal compact yet not less all frets | O |
But chafing me on fire to find my bride | V |
Went forth again with both my friends We rode | V |
Many a long league back to the North At last | V |
From hills that looked across a land of hope | Z2 |
We dropt with evening on a rustic town | Q2 |
Set in a gleaming river's crescent curve | A3 |
Close at the boundary of the liberties | O |
There entered an old hostel called mine host | V |
To council plied him with his richest wines | O |
And showed the late writ letters of the king | T |
- | |
He with a long low sibilation stared | V |
As blank as death in marble then exclaimed | V |
Averring it was clear against all rules | O |
For any man to go but as his brain | Q |
Began to mellow 'If the king ' he said | V |
'Had given us letters was he bound to speak | B3 |
The king would bear him out ' and at the last | V |
The summer of the vine in all his veins | O |
'No doubt that we might make it worth his while | C3 |
She once had past that way he heard her speak | B3 |
She scared him life he never saw the like | D3 |
She looked as grand as doomsday and as grave | E3 |
And he he reverenced his liege lady there | F2 |
He always made a point to post with mares | O |
His daughter and his housemaid were the boys | O |
The land he understood for miles about | V |
Was tilled by women all the swine were sows | O |
And all the dogs' | O |
But while he jested thus | O |
A thought flashed through me which I clothed in act | V |
Remembering how we three presented Maid | V |
Or Nymph or Goddess at high tide of feast | V |
In masque or pageant at my father's court | V |
We sent mine host to purchase female gear | F2 |
He brought it and himself a sight to shake | F3 |
The midriff of despair with laughter holp | Z2 |
To lace us up till each in maiden plumes | O |
We rustled him we gave a costly bribe | G3 |
To guerdon silence mounted our good steeds | O |
And boldly ventured on the liberties | O |
- | |
We followed up the river as we rode | V |
And rode till midnight when the college lights | O |
Began to glitter firefly like in copse | O |
And linden alley then we past an arch | H3 |
Whereon a woman statue rose with wings | O |
From four winged horses dark against the stars | O |
And some inscription ran along the front | V |
But deep in shadow further on we gained | V |
A little street half garden and half house | O |
But scarce could hear each other speak for noise | O |
Of clocks and chimes like silver hammers falling | T |
On silver anvils and the splash and stir | F2 |
Of fountains spouted up and showering down | Q2 |
In meshes of the jasmine and the rose | O |
And all about us pealed the nightingale | I3 |
Rapt in her song and careless of the snare | F2 |
- | |
There stood a bust of Pallas for a sign | J3 |
By two sphere lamps blazoned like Heaven and Earth | K3 |
With constellation and with continent | V |
Above an entry riding in we called | V |
A plump armed Ostleress and a stable wench | H3 |
Came running at the call and helped us down | Q2 |
Then stept a buxom hostess forth and sailed | V |
Full blown before us into rooms which gave | E3 |
Upon a pillared porch the bases lost | V |
In laurel her we asked of that and this | O |
And who were tutors 'Lady Blanche' she said | V |
'And Lady Psyche ' 'Which was prettiest | V |
Best natured ' 'Lady Psyche ' 'Hers are we ' | - |
One voice we cried and I sat down and wrote | V |
In such a hand as when a field of corn | L3 |
Bows all its ears before the roaring East | V |
- | |
'Three ladies of the Northern empire pray | F2 |
Your Highness would enroll them with your own | H2 |
As Lady Psyche's pupils ' | - |
This I sealed | V |
The seal was Cupid bent above a scroll | M3 |
And o'er his head Uranian Venus hung | N3 |
And raised the blinding bandage from his eyes | O |
I gave the letter to be sent with dawn | O3 |
And then to bed where half in doze I seemed | V |
To float about a glimmering night and watch | H3 |
A full sea glazed with muffled moonlight swell | P3 |
On some dark shore just seen that it was rich | H3 |
- | |
- | |
As through the land at eve we went | V |
And plucked the ripened ears | O |
We fell out my wife and I | I2 |
O we fell out I know not why | I2 |
And kissed again with tears | O |
And blessings on the falling out | V |
That all the more endears | O |
When we fall out with those we love | X2 |
And kiss again with tears | O |
For when we came where lies the child | V |
We lost in other years | O |
There above the little grave | E3 |
O there above the little grave | E3 |
We kissed again with tears | O |
Alfred Lord Tennyson
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about The Princess (part I) poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Best Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson