A Ballad Of Life Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCADDEFFG HIJHKKLMML KKKKKKKNNK OKKOPQRSST QKKQQQUKKU VWWVKKTKKT QSSQQQQQQQ QKQKQQQQQQQSQS| I found in dreams a place of wind and flowers | A |
| Full of sweet trees and colour of glad grass | B |
| In midst whereof there was | C |
| A lady clothed like summer with sweet hours | A |
| Her beauty fervent as a fiery moon | D |
| Made my blood burn and swoon | D |
| Like a flame rained upon | E |
| Sorrow had filled her shaken eyelids' blue | F |
| And her mouth's sad red heavy rose all through | F |
| Seemed sad with glad things gone | G |
| - | |
| She held a little cithern by the strings | H |
| Shaped heartwise strung with subtle coloured hair | I |
| Of some dead lute player | J |
| That in dead years had done delicious things | H |
| The seven strings were named accordingly | K |
| The first string charity | K |
| The second tenderness | L |
| The rest were pleasure sorrow sleep and sin | M |
| And loving kindness that is pity's kin | M |
| And is most pitiless | L |
| - | |
| There were three men with her each garmented | K |
| With gold and shod with gold upon the feet | K |
| And with plucked ears of wheat | K |
| The first man's hair was wound upon his head | K |
| His face was red and his mouth curled and sad | K |
| All his gold garment had | K |
| Pale stains of dust and rust | K |
| A riven hood was pulled across his eyes | N |
| The token of him being upon this wise | N |
| Made for a sign of Lust | K |
| - | |
| The next was Shame with hollow heavy face | O |
| Coloured like green wood when flame kindles it | K |
| He hath such feeble feet | K |
| They may not well endure in any place | O |
| His face was full of grey old miseries | P |
| And all his blood's increase | Q |
| Was even increase of pain | R |
| The last was Fear that is akin to Death | S |
| He is Shame's friend and always as Shame saith | S |
| Fear answers him again | T |
| - | |
| My soul said in me This is marvellous | Q |
| Seeing the air's face is not so delicate | K |
| Nor the sun's grace so great | K |
| If sin and she be kin or amorous | Q |
| And seeing where maidens served her on their knees | Q |
| I bade one crave of these | Q |
| To know the cause thereof | U |
| Then Fear said I am Pity that was dead | K |
| And Shame said I am Sorrow comforted | K |
| And Lust said I am Love | U |
| - | |
| Thereat her hands began a lute playing | V |
| And her sweet mouth a song in a strange tongue | W |
| And all the while she sung | W |
| There was no sound but long tears following | V |
| Long tears upon men's faces waxen white | K |
| With extreme sad delight | K |
| But those three following men | T |
| Became as men raised up among the dead | K |
| Great glad mouths open and fair cheeks made red | K |
| With child's blood come again | T |
| - | |
| Then I said Now assuredly I see | Q |
| My lady is perfect and transfigureth | S |
| All sin and sorrow and death | S |
| Making them fair as her own eyelids be | Q |
| Or lips wherein my whole soul's life abides | Q |
| Or as her sweet white sides | Q |
| And bosom carved to kiss | Q |
| Now therefore if her pity further me | Q |
| Doubtless for her sake all my days shall be | Q |
| As righteous as she is | Q |
| - | |
| Forth ballad and take roses in both arms | Q |
| Even till the top rose touch thee in the throat | K |
| Where the least thornprick harms | Q |
| And girdled in thy golden singing coat | K |
| Come thou before my lady and say this | Q |
| Borgia thy gold hair's colour burns in me | Q |
| Thy mouth makes beat my blood in feverish rhymes | Q |
| Therefore so many as these roses be | Q |
| Kiss me so many times | Q |
| Then it may be seeing how sweet she is | Q |
| That she will stoop herself none otherwise | Q |
| Than a blown vine branch doth | S |
| And kiss thee with soft laughter on thine eyes | Q |
| Ballad and on thy mouth | S |
Algernon Charles Swinburne
(1)
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