A Sequence Of Sonnets On The Death Of Robert Browning Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCCBBCCB DDEDEE AFDDFFDDFGGHGHH AIDDIIDDIJJKJKK ILMMLLMML IIAIAA MNDDNNDDNDDNDNN ADOODDOODMMIMII IDPPDDPPDMMQMQQI | A |
The clearest eyes in all the world they read | B |
With sense more keen and spirit of sight more true | C |
Than burns and thrills in sunrise when the dew | C |
Flames and absorbs the glory round it shed | B |
As they the light of ages quick and dead | B |
Closed now forsake us yet the shaft that slew | C |
Can slay not one of all the works we knew | C |
Nor death discrown that many laurelled head | B |
- | |
The works of words whose life seems lightning wrought | D |
And moulded of unconquerable thought | D |
And quickened with imperishable flame | E |
Stand fast and shine and smile assured that nought | D |
May fade of all their myriad moulded fame | E |
Nor England's memory clasp not Browning's name | E |
- | |
II | A |
Death what hast thou to do with one for whom | F |
Time is not lord but servant What least part | D |
Of all the fire that fed his living heart | D |
Of all the light more keen that sundawn's bloom | F |
That lit and led his spirit strong as doom | F |
And bright as hope can aught thy breath may dart | D |
Quench Nay thou knowest he knew thee what thou art | D |
A shadow born of terror's barren womb | F |
That brings not forth save shadows What art thou | G |
To dream albeit thou breathe upon his brow | G |
That power on him is given thee that thy breath | H |
Can make him less than love acclaims him now | G |
And hears all time sound back the word it saith | H |
What part hast thou then in his glory Death | H |
- | |
III | A |
A graceless doom it seems that bids us grieve | I |
Venice and winter hand in deadly hand | D |
Have slain the lover of her sunbright strand | D |
And singer of a stormbright Christmas Eve | I |
A graceless guerdon we that loved receive | I |
For all our love from that the dearest land | D |
Love worshipped ever Blithe and soft and bland | D |
Too fair for storm to scathe or fire to cleave | I |
Shone on our dreams and memories evermore | J |
The domes the towers the mountains and the shore | J |
That gird or guard thee Venice cold and black | K |
Seems now the face we loved as he of yore | J |
We have given thee love no stint no stay no lack | K |
What gift what gift is this thou hast given us back | K |
- | |
IV | I |
But he to him who knows what gift is thine | L |
Death Hardly may we think or hope when we | M |
Pass likewise thither where to night is he | M |
Beyond the irremeable outer seas that shine | L |
And darken round such dreams as half divine | L |
Some sunlit harbour in that starless sea | M |
Where gleams no ship to windward or to lee | M |
To read with him the secret of thy shrine | L |
- | |
There too as here may song delight and love | I |
The nightingale the sea bird and the dove | I |
Fulfil with joy the splendour of the sky | A |
Till all beneath wax bright as all above | I |
But none of all that search the heavens and try | A |
The sun may match the sovereign eagle's eye | A |
- | |
V | M |
Among the wondrous ways of men and time | N |
He went as one that ever found and sought | D |
And bore in hand the lamp like spirit of thought | D |
To illume with instance of its fire sublime | N |
The dusk of many a cloudlike age and clime | N |
No spirit in shape of light and darkness wrought | D |
No faith no fear no dream no rapture nought | D |
That blooms in wisdom nought that burns in crime | N |
No virtue girt and armed and helmed with light | D |
No love more lovely than the snows are white | D |
No serpent sleeping in some dead soul's tomb | N |
No song bird singing from some live soul's height | D |
But he might hear interpret or illume | N |
With sense invasive as the dawn of doom | N |
- | |
VI | A |
What secret thing of splendour or of shade | D |
Surmised in all those wandering ways wherein | O |
Man led of love and life and death and sin | O |
Strays climbs or cowers allured absorbed afraid | D |
Might not the strong and sunlike sense invade | D |
Of that full soul that had for aim to win | O |
Light silent over time's dark toil and din | O |
Life at whose touch death fades as dead things fade | D |
O spirit of man what mystery moves in thee | M |
That he might know not of in spirit and see | M |
The heart within the heart that seems to strive | I |
The life within the life that seems to be | M |
And hear through all thy storms that whirl and drive | I |
The living sound of all men's souls alive | I |
- | |
VII | I |
He held no dream worth waking so he said | D |
He who stands now on death's triumphal steep | P |
Awakened out of life wherein we sleep | P |
And dream of what he knows and sees being dead | D |
But never death for him was dark or dread | D |
Look forth he bade the soul and fear not Weep | P |
All ye that trust not in his truth and keep | P |
Vain memory's vision of a vanished head | D |
As all that lives of all that once was he | M |
Save that which lightens from his word but we | M |
Who seeing the sunset coloured waters roll | Q |
Yet know the sun subdued not of the sea | M |
Nor weep nor doubt that still the spirit is whole | Q |
And life and death but shadows of the soul | Q |
Algernon Charles Swinburne
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