A Word From The Psalmist Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A B BCDEDFGHGH G G IJIJKLKL MNMNGOGOLLLL GPGPQGQGQGQG RSRSRMRMGLGL LLLLKRKRGRGR LRLRBLB LLLL GLGLMRMR R R LKRKRGTGTBRBR| Ps xciv | A |
| - | |
| I | - |
| 'Take heed ye unwise among the people | B |
| O ye fools when will ye understand ' | - |
| From pulpit or choir beneath the steeple | B |
| Though the words be fierce the tones are bland | C |
| But a louder than the Church's echo thunders | D |
| In the ears of men who may not choose but hear | E |
| And the heart in him that hears it leaps and wonders | D |
| With triumphant hope astonished or with fear | F |
| For the names whose sound was power awaken | G |
| Neither love nor reverence now nor dread | H |
| Their strongholds and shrines are stormed and taken | G |
| Their kingdom and all its works are dead | H |
| - | |
| II | - |
| Take heed for the tide of time is risen | G |
| It is full not yet though now so high | - |
| That spirits and hopes long pent in prison | G |
| Feel round them a sense of freedom nigh | - |
| And a savour keen and sweet of brine and billow | I |
| And a murmur deep and strong of deepening strength | J |
| Though the watchman dream with sloth or pride for pillow | I |
| And the night be long not endless is its length | J |
| From the springs of dawn from clouds that sever | K |
| From the equal heavens and the eastward sea | L |
| The witness comes that endures for ever | K |
| Till men be brethren and thralls be free | L |
| - | |
| III | - |
| But the wind of the wings of dawn expanding | M |
| Strikes chill on your hearts as change and death | N |
| Ye are old but ye have not understanding | M |
| And proud but your pride is a dead man's breath | N |
| And your wise men toward whose words and signs ye hearken | G |
| And your strong men in whose hands ye put your trust | O |
| Strain eyes to behold but clouds and dreams that darken | G |
| Stretch hands that can find but weapons red with rust | O |
| Their watchword rings and the night rejoices | L |
| But the lark's note laughs at the night bird's notes | L |
| 'Is virtue verily found in voices | L |
| Or is wisdom won when all win votes | L |
| - | |
| IV | - |
| 'Take heed ye unwise indeed who listen | G |
| When the wind's wings beat and shift and change | P |
| Whose hearts are uplift whose eyeballs glisten | G |
| With desire of new things great and strange | P |
| Let not dreams misguide nor any visions wrong you | Q |
| That which has been it is now as it was then | G |
| Is not Compromise of old a god among you | Q |
| Is not Precedent indeed a king of men | G |
| But the windy hopes that lead mislead you | Q |
| And the sounds ye hear are void and vain | G |
| Is a vote a coat will franchise feed you | Q |
| Or words be a roof against the rain | G |
| - | |
| V | - |
| 'Eight ages are gone since kingship entered | R |
| With knights and peers at its harnessed back | S |
| And the land no more in its own strength centred | R |
| Was cast for a prey to the princely pack | S |
| But we pared the fangs and clipped the ravening claws of it | R |
| And good was in time brought forth of an evil thing | M |
| And the land's high name waxed lordlier in war because of it | R |
| When chartered Right had bridled and curbed the king | M |
| And what so fair has the world beholden | G |
| And what so firm has withstood the years | L |
| As Monarchy bound in chains all golden | G |
| And Freedom guarded about with peers | L |
| - | |
| VI | - |
| 'How think ye know not your lords and masters | L |
| What collars are meet for brawling throats | L |
| Is change not mother of strange disasters | L |
| Shall plague or peril be stayed by votes | L |
| Out of precedent and privilege and order | K |
| Have we plucked the flower of compromise whose root | R |
| Bears blossoms that shine from border again to border | K |
| And the mouths of many are fed with its temperate fruit | R |
| Your masters are wiser than ye their henchmen | G |
| Your lords know surely whereof ye have need | R |
| Equality Fools would you fain be Frenchmen | G |
| Is equity more than a word indeed | R |
| - | |
| VII | - |
| 'Your voices forsooth your most sweet voices | L |
| Your worthy voices your love your hate | R |
| Your choice who know not whereof your choice is | L |
| What stays are these for a stable state | R |
| Inconstancy blind and deaf with its own fierce babble | B |
| Swells ever your throats with storm of uncertain cheers | L |
| He leans on straws who leans on a light souled rabble | B |
| His trust is frail who puts not his trust in peers ' | - |
| So shrills the message whose word convinces | L |
| Of righteousness knaves of wisdom fools | L |
| That serfs may boast them because of princes | L |
| And the weak rejoice that the strong man rules | L |
| - | |
| VIII | - |
| True friends ye people are these the faction | G |
| Full mouthed that flatters and snails and bays | L |
| That fawns and foams with alternate action | G |
| And mocks the names that it soils with praise | L |
| As from fraud and force their power had fast beginning | M |
| So by righteousness and peace it may not stand | R |
| But by craft of state and nets of secret spinning | M |
| Words that weave and unweave wiles like ropes of sand | R |
| Form custom and gold and laws grown hoary | - |
| And strong tradition that guards the gate | R |
| To these O people to these give glory | - |
| That your name among nations may be great | R |
| - | |
| IX | L |
| How long for haply not now much longer | K |
| Shall fear put faith in a faithless creed | R |
| And shapes and shadows of truths be stronger | K |
| In strong men's eyes than the truth indeed | R |
| If freedom be not a word that dies when spoken | G |
| If justice be not a dream whence men must wake | T |
| How shall not the bonds of the thraldom of old be broken | G |
| And right put might in the hands of them that break | T |
| For clear as a tocsin from the steeple | B |
| Is the cry gone forth along the land | R |
| Take heed ye unwise among the people | B |
| O ye fools when will ye understand | R |
Algernon Charles Swinburne
(1)
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About A Word From The Psalmist
A Word From The Psalmist is a poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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