A Midsummer Holiday:- I. The Seaboard Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABBCCDCDABABBCCDCD ABABBAADADAADAD| The sea is at ebb and the sound of her utmost word | A |
| Is soft as the least wave's lapse in a still small reach | B |
| From bay into bay on quest of a goal deferred | A |
| From headland ever to headland and breach to breach | B |
| Where earth gives ear to the message that all days preach | B |
| With changes of gladness and sadness that cheer and chide | C |
| The lone way lures me along by a chance untried | C |
| That haply if hope dissolve not and faith be whole | D |
| Not all for nought shall I seek with a dream for guide | C |
| The goal that is not and ever again the goal | D |
| The trackless ways are untravelled of sail or bird | A |
| The hoar wave hardly recedes from the soundless beach | B |
| The silence of instant noon goes nigh to be heard | A |
| The viewless void to be visible all and each | B |
| A closure of calm no clamour of storm can breach | B |
| Concludes and confines and absorbs them on either side | C |
| All forces of light and of life and the live world's pride | C |
| Sands hardly ruffled of ripples that hardly roll | D |
| Seem ever to show as in reach of a swift brief stride | C |
| The goal that is not and ever again the goal | D |
| The waves are a joy to the seamew the meads to the herd | A |
| And a joy to the heart is a goal that it may not reach | B |
| No sense that for ever the limits of sense engird | A |
| No hearing or sight that is vassal to form or speech | B |
| Learns ever the secret that shadow and silence teach | B |
| Hears ever the notes that or ever they swell subside | A |
| Sees ever the light that lights not the loud world's tide | A |
| Clasps ever the cause of the lifelong scheme's control | D |
| Wherethrough we pursue till the waters of life be dried | A |
| The goal that is not and ever again the goal | D |
| Friend what have we sought or seek we whate'er betide | A |
| Though the seaboard shift its mark from afar descried | A |
| But aims whence ever anew shall arise the soul | D |
| Love thought song life but show for a glimpse and hide | A |
| The goal that is not and ever again the goal | D |
Algernon Charles Swinburne
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