A Ballad Of Death Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABBCDEFDEF GHHGIJKIJK LMMLNODNOD PDDPGOQGOR JIIJSOTSOT LJJLUVKWVK XPPYDTZDTZ A2PPA2B2EC2B2EC2 OJJOD2NE2NNE2 LDDLF2NNF2NN NNNNJIGIGJDLDLKneel down fair Love and fill thyself with tears | A |
Girdle thyself with sighing for a girth | B |
Upon the sides of mirth | B |
Cover thy lips and eyelids let thine ears | C |
Be filled with rumour of people sorrowing | D |
Make thee soft raiment out of woven sighs | E |
Upon the flesh to cleave | F |
Set pains therein and many a grievous thing | D |
And many sorrows after each his wise | E |
For armlet and for gorget and for sleeve | F |
- | |
O Love's lute heard about the lands of death | G |
Left hanged upon the trees that were therein | H |
O Love and Time and Sin | H |
Three singing mouths that mourn now underbreath | G |
Three lovers each one evil spoken of | I |
O smitten lips wherethrough this voice of mine | J |
Came softer with her praise | K |
Abide a little for our lady's love | I |
The kisses of her mouth were more than wine | J |
And more than peace the passage of her days | K |
- | |
O Love thou knowest if she were good to see | L |
O Time thou shalt not find in any land | M |
Till cast out of thine hand | M |
The sunlight and the moonlight fail from thee | L |
Another woman fashioned like as this | N |
O Sin thou knowest that all thy shame in her | O |
Was made a goodly thing | D |
Yea she caught Shame and shamed him with her kiss | N |
With her fair kiss and lips much lovelier | O |
Than lips of amorous roses in late spring | D |
- | |
By night there stood over against my bed | P |
Queen Venus with a hood striped gold and black | D |
Both sides drawn fully back | D |
From brows wherein the sad blood failed of red | P |
And temples drained of purple and full of death | G |
Her curled hair had the wave of sea water | O |
And the sea's gold in it | Q |
Her eyes were as a dove's that sickeneth | G |
Strewn dust of gold she had shed over her | O |
And pearl and purple and amber on her feet | R |
- | |
Upon her raiment of dyed sendaline | J |
Were painted all the secret ways of love | I |
And covered things thereof | I |
That hold delight as grape flowers hold their wine | J |
Red mouths of maidens and red feet of doves | S |
And brides that kept within the bride chamber | O |
Their garment of soft shame | T |
And weeping faces of the wearied loves | S |
That swoon in sleep and awake wearier | O |
With heat of lips and hair shed out like flame | T |
- | |
The tears that through her eyelids fell on me | L |
Made mine own bitter where they ran between | J |
As blood had fallen therein | J |
She saying Arise lift up thine eyes and see | L |
If any glad thing be or any good | U |
Now the best thing is taken forth of us | V |
Even she to whom all praise | K |
Was as one flower in a great multitude | W |
One glorious flower of many and glorious | V |
One day found gracious among many days | K |
- | |
Even she whose handmaiden was Love to whom | X |
At kissing times across her stateliest bed | P |
Kings bowed themselves and shed | P |
Pale wine and honey with the honeycomb | Y |
And spikenard bruised for a burnt offering | D |
Even she between whose lips the kiss became | T |
As fire and frankincense | Z |
Whose hair was as gold raiment on a king | D |
Whose eyes were as the morning purged with flame | T |
Whose eyelids as sweet savour issuing thence | Z |
- | |
Then I beheld and lo on the other side | A2 |
My lady's likeness crowned and robed and dead | P |
Sweet still but now not red | P |
Was the shut mouth whereby men lived and died | A2 |
And sweet but emptied of the blood's blue shade | B2 |
The great curled eyelids that withheld her eyes | E |
And sweet but like spoilt gold | C2 |
The weight of colour in her tresses weighed | B2 |
And sweet but as a vesture with new dyes | E |
The body that was clothed with love of old | C2 |
- | |
Ah that my tears filled all her woven hair | O |
And all the hollow bosom of her gown | J |
Ah that my tears ran down | J |
Even to the place where many kisses were | O |
Even where her parted breast flowers have place | D2 |
Even where they are cloven apart who knows not this | N |
Ah the flowers cleave apart | E2 |
And their sweet fills the tender interspace | N |
Ah the leaves grown thereof were things to kiss | N |
Ere their fine gold was tarnished at the heart | E2 |
- | |
Ah in the days when God did good to me | L |
Each part about her was a righteous thing | D |
Her mouth an almsgiving | D |
The glory of her garments charity | L |
The beauty of her bosom a good deed | F2 |
In the good days when God kept sight of us | N |
Love lay upon her eyes | N |
And on that hair whereof the world takes heed | F2 |
And all her body was more virtuous | N |
Than souls of women fashioned otherwise | N |
- | |
Now ballad gather poppies in thine hands | N |
And sheaves of brier and many rusted sheaves | N |
Rain rotten in rank lands | N |
Waste marigold and late unhappy leaves | N |
And grass that fades ere any of it be mown | J |
And when thy bosom is filled full thereof | I |
Seek out Death's face ere the light altereth | G |
And say My master that was thrall to Love | I |
Is become thrall to Death | G |
Bow down before him ballad sigh and groan | J |
But make no sojourn in thy outgoing | D |
For haply it may be | L |
That when thy feet return at evening | D |
Death shall come in with thee | L |
Algernon Charles Swinburne
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about A Ballad Of Death poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Best Poems of Algernon Charles Swinburne