The Wreck Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEEFF GHHFFIIDDJJKKLLMMNNO OP QQRRSS GTTLLUUVVWWXXYYZZA2A 2 B2C2C2D2D2 B2E2E2F2F2G2G2H2H2HH III2I2J2J2K2 B2L2L2B2B2 B2IIM2 N2N2H2H2XX B2 H2 H2H2O2O2 B2P2P2Q2JA2A2R2R2S2S 2 N2B2B2T2T2S2S2I2I2 N2S2S2U2 N2H2H2B2 N2 N2H2H2S2S2N2 H2N2CCS2S2NN

Hide me Mother my Fathers belong'd to the church of oldA
I am driven by storm and sin and death to the ancient foldA
I cling to the Catholic Cross once more to the Faith that savesB
My brain is full of the crash of wrecks and the roar of wavesB
My life itself is a wreck I have sullied a noble nameC
I am flung from the rushing tide of the world as a waif of shameC
I am roused by the wail of a child and awake to a livid lightD
And a ghastlier face than ever has haunted a grave by nightD
I would hide from the storm without I would flee from the storm withinE
I would make my life one prayer for a soul that died in his sinE
I was the tempter Mother and mine was the deeper fallF
I will sit at your feet I will hide my face I will tell you allF
-
IIG
He that they gave me to Mother a heedless and innocent brideH
I never have wrong'd his heart I have only wounded his prideH
Spain in his blood and the Jew dark visaged stately and tallF
A princelier looking man never stept thro' a Prince's hallF
And who when his anger was kindled would venture to give him the nayI
And a man men fear is a man to be loved by the women they sayI
And I could have loved him too if the blossom can doat on the blightD
Or the young green leaf rejoice in the frost that sears it at nightD
He would open the books that I prized and toss them away with a yawnJ
Repell'd by the magnet of Art to the which my nature was drawnJ
The word of the Poet by whom the deeps of the world are stirr'dK
The music that robes it in language beneath and beyond the wordK
My Shelley would fall from my hands when he cast a contemptuous glanceL
From where he was poring over his Tables of Trade and FinanceL
My hands when I heard him coming would drop from the chords or the keysM
But ever I fail'd to please him however I strove to pleaseM
All day long far off in the cloud of the city and thereN
Lost head and heart in the chances of dividend consol and shareN
And at home if I sought for a kindly caress being woman and weakO
His formal kiss fell chill as a flake of snow on the cheekO
And so when I bore him a girl when I held it aloft in my joyP
He look'd at it coldly and said to me 'Pity it isn't a boy '-
The one thing given me to love and to live for glanced at in scornQ
The child that I felt I could die for as if she were basely bornQ
I had lived a wild flower life I was planted now in a tombR
The daisy will shut to the shadow I closed my heart to the gloomR
I threw myself all abroad I would play my part with the youngS
By the low foot lights of the world and I caught the wreath that was flungS
-
IIIG
Mother I have not however their tongues may have babbled of meT
Sinn'd thro' an animal vileness for all but a dwarf was heT
And all but a hunchback too and I look'd at him first askanceL
With pity not he the knight for an amorous girl's romanceL
Tho' wealthy enough to have bask'd in the light of a dowerless smileU
Having lands at home and abroad in a rich West Indian isleU
But I came on him once at a ball the heart of a listening crowdV
Why what a brow was there he was seated speaking aloudV
To women the flower of the time and men at the helm of stateW
Flowing with easy greatness and touching on all things greatW
Science philosophy song till I felt myself ready to weepX
For I knew not what when I heard that voice as mellow and deepX
As a psalm by a mighty master and peal'd from an organ rollY
Rising and falling for Mother the voice was the voice of the soulY
And the sun of the soul made day in the dark of his wonderful eyesZ
Here was the hand that would help me would heal me the heart that was wiseZ
And he poor man when he learnt that I hated the ring I woreA2
He helpt me with death and he heal'd me with sorrow for evermoreA2
-
IVB2
For I broke the bond That day my nurse had brought me the childC2
The small sweet face was flush'd but it coo'd to the Mother and smiledC2
'Anything ailing ' I ask'd her 'with baby ' She shook her headD2
And the Motherless Mother kiss'd it and turn'd in her haste and fledD2
-
VB2
Low warm winds had gently breathed us away from the landE2
Ten long sweet summer days upon deck sitting hand in handE2
When he clothed a naked mind with the wisdom and wealth of his ownF2
And I bow'd myself down as a slave to his intellectual throneF2
When he coin'd into English gold some treasure of classical songG2
When he flouted a statesman's error or flamed at a public wrongG2
When he rose as it were on the wings of an eagle beyond me and pastH2
Over the range and the change of the world from the first to the lastH2
When lie spoke of his tropical home in the canes by the purple tideH
And the high star crowns of his palms on the deep wooded mountain sideH
And cliffs all robed in lianas that dropt to the brink of his bayI
And trees like the towers of a minster the sons of a winterless dayI
'Paradise there ' so he said but I seem'd in Paradise thenI2
With the first great love I had felt for the first and greatest of menI2
Ten long days of summer and sin if it must be soJ2
But days of a larger light than I ever again shall knowJ2
Days that will glimmer I fear thro' life to my latest breathK2
'No frost there ' so he said 'as in truest Love no Death '-
-
VIB2
Mother one morning a bird with a warble plaintively sweetL2
Perch'd on the shrouds and then fell fluttering down at my feetL2
I took it he made it a cage we fondled it Stephen and IB2
But it died and I thought of the child for a moment I scarce know whyB2
-
VIIB2
But if sin be sin not inherited fate as many will sayI
My sin to my desolate little one found me at sea on a dayI
When her orphan wail came borne in the shriek of a growing windM2
And a voice rang out in the thunders of Ocean and Heaven 'Thou hast sinn'd '-
And down in the cabin were we for the towering crest of the tidesN2
Plunged on the vessel and swept in a cataract off from her sidesN2
And ever the great storm grew with a howl and a hoot of the blastH2
In the rigging voices of hell then came the crash of the mastH2
'The wages of sin is death ' and there I began to weepX
'I am the Jonah the crew should cast me into the deepX
For ah God what a heart was mine to forsake her even for you '-
'Never the heart among women ' he said 'more tender and true '-
'The heart not a mother's heart when I left my darling alone '-
'Comfort yourself for the heart of the father will care for his own '-
'The heart of the father will spurn her ' I cried 'for the sin of the wifeB2
The cloud of the mother's shame will enfold her and darken her life '-
Then his pale face twitch'd 'O Stephen I love you I love you and yet'H2
As I lean'd away from his arms 'would God we had never met '-
And he spoke not only the storm till after a little I yearn'dH2
For his voice again and he call'd to me 'Kiss me ' and there as I turn'dH2
'The heart the heart ' I kiss'd him I clung to the sinking formO2
And the storm went roaring above us and he was out of the stormO2
-
VIIIB2
And then then Mother the ship stagger'd under a thunderous shockP2
That shook us asunder as if she had struck and crash'd on a rockP2
For a huge sea smote every soul from the decks of The Falcon but oneQ2
All of them all but the man that was lash'd to the helm had goneJ
And I fell and the storm and the days went by but I knew no moreA2
Lost myself lay like the dead by the dead on the cabin floorA2
Dead to the death beside me and lost to the loss that was mineR2
With a dim dream now and then of a hand giving bread and wineR2
Till I woke from the trance and the ship stood still and the skies were blueS2
But the face I had known O Mother was not the face that I knewS2
-
IXN2
The strange misfeaturing mask that I saw so amazed me that IB2
Stumbled on deck half mad I would fling myself over and dieB2
But one he was waving a flag the one man left on the wreckT2
'Woman' he graspt at my arm 'stay there' I crouch'd upon deckT2
'We are sinking and yet there's hope look yonder ' he cried 'a sail'S2
In a tone so rough that I broke into passionate tears and the wailS2
Of a beaten babe till I saw that a boat was nearing us thenI2
All on a sudden I thought I shall look on the child againI2
-
XN2
They lower'd me down the side and there in the boat I layS2
With sad eyes fixt on the lost sea home as we glided awayS2
And I sigh'd as the low dark hull dipt under the smiling mainU2
'Had I stay'd with him I had now with him been out of my pain '-
-
XIN2
They took us aboard the crew were gentle the captain kindH2
But I was the lonely slave of an often wandering mindH2
For whenever a rougher gust might tumble a stormier waveB2
'O Stephen ' I moan'd 'I am coming to thee in thine Ocean grave '-
And again when a balmier breeze curl'd over a peacefuller seaN2
I found myself moaning again 'O child I am coming to thee '-
-
XIIN2
The broad white brow of the Isle that bay with the colour'd sandH2
Rich was the rose of sunset there as we drew to the landH2
All so quiet the ripple would hardly blanch into sprayS2
At the feet of the cliff and I pray'd 'my child' for I still could prayS2
'May her life be as blissfully calm be never gloom'd by the curseN2
Of a sin not hers '-
Was it well with the childH2
I wrote to the nurseN2
Who had borne my flower on her hireling heart and an answer cameC
Not from the nurse nor yet to the wife to her maiden nameC
I shook as I open'd the letter I knew that hand too wellS2
And from it a scrap clipt out of the 'deaths' in a paper fellS2
'Ten long sweet summer days' of fever and want of careN
And gone that day of the storm O Mother she came to me thereN

Alfred Lord Tennyson



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