To E. Fitzgerald: Tiresias Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCDEFEFGHGHHIHI JHJHGHGHHGHGKLKLMHMH NONOPHPHQRQRGGGG G HSTUGGVGWGX YHHHHKDHZVA2GIB2C2HG HKW GD2HE2GGF2GG2HHHH2GG I2HJ2K2GXL2HGHDGHM2H KHNN2HGO2TP2GQ2KR2R2 KGGS2DHHR2DO2GHZGQ2T 2NGGGU2QGV2W2X2GY2HG G DL2GV2OLD FITZ who from your suburb grange | A |
Where once I tarried for a while | B |
Glance at the wheeling orb of change | A |
And greet it with a kindly smile | B |
Whom yet I see as there you sit | C |
Beneath your sheltering garden tree | D |
And watch your doves about you flit | C |
And plant on shoulder hand and knee | D |
Or on your head their rosy feet | E |
As if they knew your diet spares | F |
Whatever moved in that full sheet | E |
Let down to Peter at his prayers | F |
Who live on milk and meal and grass | G |
And once for ten long weeks I tried | H |
Your table of Pythagoras | G |
And seem'd at first a thing enskied | H |
As Shakespeare has it airy light | H |
To float above the ways of men | I |
Then fell from that half spiritual height | H |
Chill'd till I tasted flesh again | I |
One night when earth was winter b ack | J |
And all the heavens flash'd in frost | H |
And on me half asleep came back | J |
That wholesome heat the blood had lost | H |
And set me climbing icy capes | G |
And glaciers over which there roll'd | H |
To meet me long arm'd vines with grapes | G |
Of Eshcol hugeness for the cold | H |
Without and warmth within me wrought | H |
To mould the dream but none can say | G |
That Lenten fare makes Lenten thought | H |
Who reads your golden Eastern lay | G |
Than which I know no version done | K |
In English more divinely well | L |
A planet equal to the sun | K |
Which cast it that large infidel | L |
Your Omar and your Omar drew | M |
Full handed plaudits from our best | H |
In modern letters and from two | M |
Old friends outvaluing all the rest | H |
Two voices heard on earth no more | N |
But we old friends are still alive | O |
And I am nearing seventy four | N |
While you have touch'd at seventy five | O |
And so I send a birthday line | P |
Of greeting and my son who dipt | H |
In some forgotten book of mine | P |
With sallow scraps of manuscript | H |
And dating many a year ago | Q |
Has hit on this which you will take | R |
My Fitz and welcome as I know | Q |
Less for its own than for the sake | R |
Of one recalling gracious times | G |
When in our younger London days | G |
You found some merit in my rhymes | G |
And I more pleasure in your praise | G |
- | |
TIRESIAS | G |
- | |
I WISH I were as in the years of old | H |
While yet the blessed daylight made itself | S |
Ruddy thro' both the roofs of sight and woke | T |
These eyes now dull but then so keen to seek | U |
The meanings ambush'd under all they saw | G |
The flight of birds the flame of sacrifice | G |
What omens may foreshadow fate to man | V |
And woman and the secret of the Gods | G |
My son the Gods despite of human prayer | W |
Are slower to forgive than human kings | G |
The great God Ares burns in anger still | X |
- | |
Against the guiltless heirs of him from Tyre | Y |
Our Cadmus out of whom thou art who found | H |
Beside the springs of Dirce smote and still'd | H |
Thro' all its folds the multitudinous beast | H |
The dragon which our trembling fathers call'd | H |
The God's own son | K |
A tale that told to me | D |
When but thine age by age as winter white | H |
As mine is now amazed but made me yearn | Z |
For larger glimpses of that more than man | V |
Which rolls the heavens and lifts and lays the deep | A2 |
Yet loves and hates with mortal hates and loves | G |
And moves unseen among the ways of men | I |
Then in my wanderings all the lands that lie | B2 |
Subjected to the Heliconian ridge | C2 |
Have heard this footstep fall altho' my wont | H |
Was more to scale the highest of the heights | G |
With some strange hope to see the nearer God | H |
One naked peak the sister of the Sun | K |
Would climb from out the dark and linger there | W |
- | |
- | |
To silver all the valleys with her shafts | G |
There once but long ago five fold thy term | D2 |
Of years I lay the winds were dead for heat | H |
The noonday crag made the hand burn and sick | E2 |
For shadow not one bush was near I rose | G |
Following a torrent till its myriad falls | G |
Found silence in the hollows underneath | F2 |
There in a secret olive glade I saw | G |
Pallas Athene climbing from the bath | G2 |
In anger yet one glittering foot disturb'd | H |
The lucid well one snowy knee was prest | H |
Against the margin flowers a dreadful light | H |
Came from her golden hair her golden helm | H2 |
And all her golden armor on the grass | G |
And from her virgin breast and virgin eyes | G |
Remaining fixt on mine till mine grew dark | I2 |
For ever and I heard a voice that said | H |
Henceforth be blind for thou hast seen too much | J2 |
And speak the truth that no man may believe | K2 |
Son in the hidden world of sight that lives | G |
Behind this darkness I behold her still | X |
Beyond all work of those who carve the stone | L2 |
Beyond all dreams of Godlike womanhood | H |
Ineffable beauty out of whom at a glance | G |
And as it were perforce upon me flash'd | H |
The power of prophesying but to me | D |
No power so chain'd and coupled with the curse | G |
Of blindness and their unbelief who heard | H |
And heard not when I spake of famine plague | M2 |
Shrine shattering earthquake fire flood thunderbolt | H |
And angers of the Gods for evil done | K |
And expiation lack'd no power on Fate | H |
Theirs or mine own for when the crowd would roar | N |
For blood for war whose issue was their doom | N2 |
To cast wise words among the multitude | H |
Was fiinging fruit to lions nor in hours | G |
Of civil outbreak when I knew the twain | O2 |
Would each waste each and bring on both the yoke | T |
Of stronger states was mine the voice to curb | P2 |
The madness of our cities and their kings | G |
Who ever turn'd upon his heel to hear | Q2 |
My warning that the tyranny of one | K |
Was prelude to the tyranny of all | R2 |
My counsel that the tyranny of all | R2 |
Led backward to the tyranny of one | K |
This power hath work'd no good to aught that lives | G |
And these blind hands were useless in their wars | G |
O therefore that the unfulfill'd desire | S2 |
The grief for ever born from griefs to be | D |
The boundless yearning of the prophet's heart | H |
Could that stand forth and like a statue rear'd | H |
To some great citizen wim all praise from all | R2 |
Who past it saying That was he | D |
In vain | O2 |
Virtue must shape itself im deed and those | G |
Whom weakness or necessity have cramp'd | H |
Withm themselves immerging each his urn | Z |
In his own well draws solace as he may | G |
Menceceus thou hast eyes and I can hear | Q2 |
Too plainly what full tides of onset sap | T2 |
Our seven high gates and what a weight of war | N |
Rides on those ringing axlesl jingle of bits | G |
Shouts arrows tramp of the horn footed horse | G |
That grind the glebe to powder Stony showers | G |
Of that ear stunning hail of Ares crash | U2 |
Along the sounding walls Above below | Q |
Shock after shock the song built towers and gates | G |
Reel bruised and butted with the shuddering | V2 |
War thunder of iron rams and from within | W2 |
The city comes a murmur void of joy | X2 |
Lest she be taken captive maidens wives | G |
And mothers with their babblers of the dawn | Y2 |
And oldest age in shadow from the night | H |
Falling about their shrines before their Gods | G |
And wailing Save us | G |
- | |
And they wail to thee | D |
These eyeless eyes that cannot see thine own | L2 |
See this that only in thy virtue lies | G |
The saving | V2 |
Alfred Lord Tennyson
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about To E. Fitzgerald: Tiresias poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Best Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson