A Swimmer's Dream Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BABACCCA BDBDEEED FGFGHHHG IAIACCIA BABAAABA BABABBBA JBBJB AKKAK JBLBLBLBL IMIMIMIM CNCNCNCN BBBBBBBB BCBCBIIIB BABAOOBA BPBPBBBP BBBBBBBBSomno mollior unda | A |
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I | - |
Dawn is dim on the dark soft water | B |
Soft and passionate dark and sweet | A |
Love's own self was the deep sea's daughter | B |
Fair and flawless from face to feet | A |
Hailed of all when the world was golden | C |
Loved of lovers whose names beholden | C |
Thrill men's eyes as with light of olden | C |
Days more glad than their flight was fleet | A |
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So they sang but for men that love her | B |
Souls that hear not her word in vain | D |
Earth beside her and heaven above her | B |
Seem but shadows that wax and wane | D |
Softer than sleep's are the sea's caresses | E |
Kinder than love's that betrays and blesses | E |
Blither than spring's when her flowerful tresses | E |
Shake forth sunlight and shine with rain | D |
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All the strength of the waves that perish | F |
Swells beneath me and laughs and sighs | G |
Sighs for love of the life they cherish | F |
Laughs to know that it lives and dies | G |
Dies for joy of its life and lives | H |
Thrilled with joy that its brief death gives | H |
Death whose laugh or whose breath forgives | H |
Change that bids it subside and rise | G |
- | |
II | - |
Hard and heavy remote but nearing | I |
Sunless hangs the severe sky's weight | A |
Cloud on cloud though the wind be veering | I |
Heaped on high to the sundawn's gate | A |
Dawn and even and noon are one | C |
Veiled with vapour and void of sun | C |
Nought in sight or in fancied hearing | I |
Now less mighty than time or fate | A |
- | |
The grey sky gleams and the grey seas glimmer | B |
Pale and sweet as a dream's delight | A |
As a dream's where darkness and light seem dimmer | B |
Touched by dawn or subdued by night | A |
The dark wind stern and sublime and sad | A |
Swings the rollers to westward clad | A |
With lustrous shadow that lures the swimmer | B |
Lures and lulls him with dreams of light | A |
- | |
Light and sleep and delight and wonder | B |
Change and rest and a charm of cloud | A |
Fill the world of the skies whereunder | B |
Heaves and quivers and pants aloud | A |
All the world of the waters hoary | B |
Now but clothed with its own live glory | B |
That mates the lightning and mocks the thunder | B |
With light more living and word more proud | A |
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III | - |
Far off westward whither sets the sounding strife | J |
Strife more sweet than peace of shoreless waves whose glee | B |
Scorns the shore and loves the wind that leaves them free | B |
Strange as sleep and pale as death and fair as life | J |
Shifts the moonlight coloured sunshine on the sea | B |
- | |
Toward the sunset's goal the sunless waters crowd | A |
Fast as autumn days toward winter yet it seems | K |
Here that autumn wanes not here that woods and streams | K |
Lose not heart and change not likeness chilled and bowed | A |
Warped and wrinkled here the days are fair as dreams | K |
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IV | J |
O russet robed November | B |
What ails thee so to smile | L |
Chill August pale September | B |
Endured a woful while | L |
And fell as falls an ember | B |
From forth a flameless pile | L |
But golden girt November | B |
Bids all she looks on smile | L |
- | |
The lustrous foliage waning | I |
As wanes the morning moon | M |
Here falling here refraining | I |
Outbraves the pride of June | M |
With statelier semblance feigning | I |
No fear lest death be soon | M |
As though the woods thus waning | I |
Should wax to meet the moon | M |
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As though when fields lie stricken | C |
By grey December's breath | N |
These lordlier growths that sicken | C |
And die for fear of death | N |
Should feel the sense requicken | C |
That hears what springtide saith | N |
And thrills for love spring stricken | C |
And pierced with April's breath | N |
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The keen white winged north easter | B |
That stings and spurs thy sea | B |
Doth yet but feed and feast her | B |
With glowing sense of glee | B |
Calm chained her storm released her | B |
And storm's glad voice was he | B |
South wester or north easter | B |
Thy winds rejoice the sea | B |
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V | B |
A dream a dream is it all the season | C |
The sky the water the wind the shore | B |
A day born dream of divine unreason | C |
A marvel moulded of sleep no more | B |
For the cloudlike wave that my limbs while cleaving | I |
Feel as in slumber beneath them heaving | I |
Soothes the sense as to slumber leaving | I |
Sense of nought that was known of yore | B |
- | |
A purer passion a lordlier leisure | B |
A peace more happy than lives on land | A |
Fulfils with pulse of diviner pleasure | B |
The dreaming head and the steering hand | A |
I lean my cheek to the cold grey pillow | O |
The deep soft swell of the full broad billow | O |
And close mine eyes for delight past measure | B |
And wish the wheel of the world would stand | A |
- | |
The wild winged hour that we fain would capture | B |
Falls as from heaven that its light feet clomb | P |
So brief so soft and so full the rapture | B |
Was felt that soothed me with sense of home | P |
To sleep to swim and to dream for ever | B |
Such joy the vision of man saw never | B |
For here too soon will a dark day sever | B |
The sea bird's wing from the sea wave's foam | P |
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A dream and more than a dream and dimmer | B |
At once and brighter than dreams that flee | B |
The moment's joy of the seaward swimmer | B |
Abides remembered as truth may be | B |
Not all the joy and not all the glory | B |
Must fade as leaves when the woods wax hoary | B |
For there the downs and the sea banks glimmer | B |
And here to south of them swells the sea | B |
Algernon Charles Swinburne
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