A Midsummer Holiday:- Vi. The Cliffside Path Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABBCCDCDABABBBBBBB ABABBBBBBBBBBBB| Seaward goes the sun and homeward by the down | A |
| We before the night upon his grave be sealed | B |
| Low behind us lies the bright steep murmuring town | A |
| High before us heaves the steep rough silent field | B |
| Breach by ghastlier breach the cliffs collapsing yield | B |
| Half the path is broken half the banks divide | C |
| Flawed and crumbled riven and rent they cleave and slide | C |
| Toward the ridged and wrinkled waste of girdling sand | D |
| Deep beneath whose furrows tell how far and wide | C |
| Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand | D |
| Star by star on the unsunned waters twiring down | A |
| Golden spear points glance against a silver shield | B |
| Over banks and bents across the headland's crown | A |
| As by pulse of gradual plumes through twilight wheeled | B |
| Soft as sleep the waking wind awakes the weald | B |
| Moor and copse and fallow near or far descried | B |
| Feel the mild wings move and gladden where they glide | B |
| Silence uttering love that all things understand | B |
| Bids the quiet fields forget that hard beside | B |
| Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand | B |
| Yet may sight ere all the hoar soft shade grow brown | A |
| Hardly reckon half the lifts and rents unhealed | B |
| Where the scarred cliffs downward sundering drive and drown | A |
| Hewn as if with stroke of swords in tempest steeled | B |
| Wielded as the night's will and the wind's may wield | B |
| Crowned and zoned in vain with flowers of autumn tide | B |
| Soon the blasts shall break them soon the waters hide | B |
| Soon where late we stood shall no man ever stand | B |
| Life and love seek harbourage on the landward side | B |
| Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand | B |
| Friend though man be less than these for all his pride | B |
| Yet for all his weakness shall not hope abide | B |
| Wind and change can wreck but life and waste but land | B |
| Truth and trust are sure though here till all subside | B |
| Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand | B |
Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Write your comment about A Midsummer Holiday:- Vi. The Cliffside Path poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Clifford G.Davis: What an extraordinary, beautiful poem, full metrical invention and lofty elegance.
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