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 H2N2CCS2S2NNHide me Mother my Fathers belong'd to the church of old | A |
I am driven by storm and sin and death to the ancient fold | A |
I cling to the Catholic Cross once more to the Faith that saves | B |
My brain is full of the crash of wrecks and the roar of waves | B |
My life itself is a wreck I have sullied a noble name | C |
I am flung from the rushing tide of the world as a waif of shame | C |
I am roused by the wail of a child and awake to a livid light | D |
And a ghastlier face than ever has haunted a grave by night | D |
I would hide from the storm without I would flee from the storm within | E |
I would make my life one prayer for a soul that died in his sin | E |
I was the tempter Mother and mine was the deeper fall | F |
I will sit at your feet I will hide my face I will tell you all | F |
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II | G |
He that they gave me to Mother a heedless and innocent bride | H |
I never have wrong'd his heart I have only wounded his pride | H |
Spain in his blood and the Jew dark visaged stately and tall | F |
A princelier looking man never stept thro' a Prince's hall | F |
And who when his anger was kindled would venture to give him the nay | I |
And a man men fear is a man to be loved by the women they say | I |
And I could have loved him too if the blossom can doat on the blight | D |
Or the young green leaf rejoice in the frost that sears it at night | D |
He would open the books that I prized and toss them away with a yawn | J |
Repell'd by the magnet of Art to the which my nature was drawn | J |
The word of the Poet by whom the deeps of the world are stirr'd | K |
The music that robes it in language beneath and beyond the word | K |
My Shelley would fall from my hands when he cast a contemptuous glance | L |
From where he was poring over his Tables of Trade and Finance | L |
My hands when I heard him coming would drop from the chords or the keys | M |
But ever I fail'd to please him however I strove to please | M |
All day long far off in the cloud of the city and there | N |
Lost head and heart in the chances of dividend consol and share | N |
And at home if I sought for a kindly caress being woman and weak | O |
His formal kiss fell chill as a flake of snow on the cheek | O |
And so when I bore him a girl when I held it aloft in my joy | P |
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 scorn | Q |
The child that I felt I could die for as if she were basely born | Q |
I had lived a wild flower life I was planted now in a tomb | R |
The daisy will shut to the shadow I closed my heart to the gloom | R |
I threw myself all abroad I would play my part with the young | S |
By the low foot lights of the world and I caught the wreath that was flung | S |
- | |
III | G |
Mother I have not however their tongues may have babbled of me | T |
Sinn'd thro' an animal vileness for all but a dwarf was he | T |
And all but a hunchback too and I look'd at him first askance | L |
With pity not he the knight for an amorous girl's romance | L |
Tho' wealthy enough to have bask'd in the light of a dowerless smile | U |
Having lands at home and abroad in a rich West Indian isle | U |
But I came on him once at a ball the heart of a listening crowd | V |
Why what a brow was there he was seated speaking aloud | V |
To women the flower of the time and men at the helm of state | W |
Flowing with easy greatness and touching on all things great | W |
Science philosophy song till I felt myself ready to weep | X |
For I knew not what when I heard that voice as mellow and deep | X |
As a psalm by a mighty master and peal'd from an organ roll | Y |
Rising and falling for Mother the voice was the voice of the soul | Y |
And the sun of the soul made day in the dark of his wonderful eyes | Z |
Here was the hand that would help me would heal me the heart that was wise | Z |
And he poor man when he learnt that I hated the ring I wore | A2 |
He helpt me with death and he heal'd me with sorrow for evermore | A2 |
- | |
IV | B2 |
For I broke the bond That day my nurse had brought me the child | C2 |
The small sweet face was flush'd but it coo'd to the Mother and smiled | C2 |
'Anything ailing ' I ask'd her 'with baby ' She shook her head | D2 |
And the Motherless Mother kiss'd it and turn'd in her haste and fled | D2 |
- | |
V | B2 |
Low warm winds had gently breathed us away from the land | E2 |
Ten long sweet summer days upon deck sitting hand in hand | E2 |
When he clothed a naked mind with the wisdom and wealth of his own | F2 |
And I bow'd myself down as a slave to his intellectual throne | F2 |
When he coin'd into English gold some treasure of classical song | G2 |
When he flouted a statesman's error or flamed at a public wrong | G2 |
When he rose as it were on the wings of an eagle beyond me and past | H2 |
Over the range and the change of the world from the first to the last | H2 |
When lie spoke of his tropical home in the canes by the purple tide | H |
And the high star crowns of his palms on the deep wooded mountain side | H |
And cliffs all robed in lianas that dropt to the brink of his bay | I |
And trees like the towers of a minster the sons of a winterless day | I |
'Paradise there ' so he said but I seem'd in Paradise then | I2 |
With the first great love I had felt for the first and greatest of men | I2 |
Ten long days of summer and sin if it must be so | J2 |
But days of a larger light than I ever again shall know | J2 |
Days that will glimmer I fear thro' life to my latest breath | K2 |
'No frost there ' so he said 'as in truest Love no Death ' | - |
- | |
VI | B2 |
Mother one morning a bird with a warble plaintively sweet | L2 |
Perch'd on the shrouds and then fell fluttering down at my feet | L2 |
I took it he made it a cage we fondled it Stephen and I | B2 |
But it died and I thought of the child for a moment I scarce know why | B2 |
- | |
VII | B2 |
But if sin be sin not inherited fate as many will say | I |
My sin to my desolate little one found me at sea on a day | I |
When her orphan wail came borne in the shriek of a growing wind | M2 |
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 tides | N2 |
Plunged on the vessel and swept in a cataract off from her sides | N2 |
And ever the great storm grew with a howl and a hoot of the blast | H2 |
In the rigging voices of hell then came the crash of the mast | H2 |
'The wages of sin is death ' and there I began to weep | X |
'I am the Jonah the crew should cast me into the deep | X |
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 wife | B2 |
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'd | H2 |
For his voice again and he call'd to me 'Kiss me ' and there as I turn'd | H2 |
'The heart the heart ' I kiss'd him I clung to the sinking form | O2 |
And the storm went roaring above us and he was out of the storm | O2 |
- | |
VIII | B2 |
And then then Mother the ship stagger'd under a thunderous shock | P2 |
That shook us asunder as if she had struck and crash'd on a rock | P2 |
For a huge sea smote every soul from the decks of The Falcon but one | Q2 |
All of them all but the man that was lash'd to the helm had gone | J |
And I fell and the storm and the days went by but I knew no more | A2 |
Lost myself lay like the dead by the dead on the cabin floor | A2 |
Dead to the death beside me and lost to the loss that was mine | R2 |
With a dim dream now and then of a hand giving bread and wine | R2 |
Till I woke from the trance and the ship stood still and the skies were blue | S2 |
But the face I had known O Mother was not the face that I knew | S2 |
- | |
IX | N2 |
The strange misfeaturing mask that I saw so amazed me that I | B2 |
Stumbled on deck half mad I would fling myself over and die | B2 |
But one he was waving a flag the one man left on the wreck | T2 |
'Woman' he graspt at my arm 'stay there' I crouch'd upon deck | T2 |
'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 wail | S2 |
Of a beaten babe till I saw that a boat was nearing us then | I2 |
All on a sudden I thought I shall look on the child again | I2 |
- | |
X | N2 |
They lower'd me down the side and there in the boat I lay | S2 |
With sad eyes fixt on the lost sea home as we glided away | S2 |
And I sigh'd as the low dark hull dipt under the smiling main | U2 |
'Had I stay'd with him I had now with him been out of my pain ' | - |
- | |
XI | N2 |
They took us aboard the crew were gentle the captain kind | H2 |
But I was the lonely slave of an often wandering mind | H2 |
For whenever a rougher gust might tumble a stormier wave | B2 |
'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 sea | N2 |
I found myself moaning again 'O child I am coming to thee ' | - |
- | |
XII | N2 |
The broad white brow of the Isle that bay with the colour'd sand | H2 |
Rich was the rose of sunset there as we drew to the land | H2 |
All so quiet the ripple would hardly blanch into spray | S2 |
At the feet of the cliff and I pray'd 'my child' for I still could pray | S2 |
'May her life be as blissfully calm be never gloom'd by the curse | N2 |
Of a sin not hers ' | - |
Was it well with the child | H2 |
I wrote to the nurse | N2 |
Who had borne my flower on her hireling heart and an answer came | C |
Not from the nurse nor yet to the wife to her maiden name | C |
I shook as I open'd the letter I knew that hand too well | S2 |
And from it a scrap clipt out of the 'deaths' in a paper fell | S2 |
'Ten long sweet summer days' of fever and want of care | N |
And gone that day of the storm O Mother she came to me there | N |
Alfred Lord Tennyson
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