Astrophel Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCBCBBBBCDCDEEEEBBBB FGFGHIHIJDJDEKEKLMNM GOGOCBCBCBCBBIBI PQRSSSBBBTTTUUUBBBGG G EKEKVWVWGGGTTTTFEFEX XXYTYTFGFGQQQVGVGTMT MAfter reading Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia in the garden of an old English manor house | A |
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I | - |
A star in the silence that follows | B |
The song of the death of the sun | C |
Speaks music in heaven and the hollows | B |
And heights of the world are as one | C |
One lyre that outsings and outlightens | B |
The rapture of sunset and thrills | B |
Mute night till the sense of it brightens | B |
The soul that it fills | B |
The flowers of the sun that is sunken | C |
Hang heavy of heart as of head | D |
The bees that have eaten and drunken | C |
The soul of their sweetness are fled | D |
But a sunflower of song on whose honey | E |
My spirit has fed as a bee | E |
Makes sunnier than morning was sunny | E |
The twilight for me | E |
The letters and lines on the pages | B |
That sundered mine eyes and the flowers | B |
Wax faint as the shadows of ages | B |
That sunder their season and ours | B |
As the ghosts of the centuries that sever | F |
A season of colourless time | G |
From the days whose remembrance is ever | F |
As they were sublime | G |
The season that bred and that cherished | H |
The soul that I commune with yet | I |
Had it utterly withered and perished | H |
To rise not again as it set | I |
Shame were it that Englishmen living | J |
Should read as their forefathers read | D |
The books of the praise and thanksgiving | J |
Of Englishmen dead | D |
O light of the land that adored thee | E |
And kindled thy soul with her breath | K |
Whose life such as fate would afford thee | E |
Was lovelier than aught but thy death | K |
By what name could thy lovers but know it | L |
Might love of thee hail thee afar | M |
Philisides Astrophel poet | N |
Whose love was thy star | M |
A star in the moondawn of Maytime | G |
A star in the cloudland of change | O |
Too splendid and sad for the daytime | G |
To cheer or eclipse or estrange | O |
Too sweet for tradition or vision | C |
To see but through shadows of tears | B |
Rise deathless across the division | C |
Of measureless years | B |
The twilight may deepen and harden | C |
As nightward the stream of it runs | B |
Till starshine transfigure a garden | C |
Whose radiance responds to the sun's | B |
The light of the love of thee darkens | B |
The lights that arise and that set | I |
The love that forgets thee not hearkens | B |
If England forget | I |
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II | - |
Bright and brief in the sight of grief and love the light of thy lifetime shone | P |
Seen and felt by the gifts it dealt the grace it gave and again was gone | Q |
Ay but now it is death not thou whom time has conquered as years pass on | R |
Ay not yet may the land forget that bore and loved thee and praised and wept | S |
Sidney lord of the stainless sword the name of names that her heart's love kept | S |
Fast as thine did her own a sign to light thy life till it sank and slept | S |
Bright as then for the souls of men thy brave Arcadia resounds and shines | B |
Lit with love that beholds above all joys and sorrows the steadfast signs | B |
Faith a splendour that hope makes tender and truth whose presage the soul divines | B |
All the glory that girds the story of all thy life as with sunlight round | T |
All the spell that on all souls fell who saw thy spirit and held them bound | T |
Lives for all that have heard the call and cadence yet of its music sound | T |
Music bright as the soul of light for wings an eagle for notes a dove | U |
Leaps and shines from the lustrous lines wherethrough thy soul from afar above | U |
Shone and sang till the darkness rang with light whose fire is the fount of love | U |
Love that led thee alive and fed thy soul with sorrows and joys and fears | B |
Love that sped thee alive and dead to fame's fair goal with thy peerless peers | B |
Feeds the flame of thy quenchless name with light that lightens the rayless years | B |
Dark as sorrow though night and morrow may lower with presage of clouded fame | G |
How may she that of old bare thee may Sidney's England be brought to shame | G |
How should this be while England is What need of answer beyond thy name | G |
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III | - |
From the love that transfigures thy glory | E |
From the light of the dawn of thy death | K |
The life of thy song and thy story | E |
Took subtler and fierier breath | K |
And we though the day and the morrow | V |
Set fear and thanksgiving at strife | W |
Hail yet in the star of thy sorrow | V |
The sun of thy life | W |
Shame and fear may beset men here and bid thanksgiving and pride be dumb | G |
Faith discrowned of her praise and wound about with toils till her life wax numb | G |
Scarce may see if the sundawn be if darkness die not and dayrise come | G |
But England enmeshed and benetted | T |
With spiritless villainies round | T |
With counsels of cowardice fretted | T |
With trammels of treason enwound | T |
Is yet though the season be other | F |
Than wept and rejoiced over thee | E |
Thine England thy lover thy mother | F |
Sublime as the sea | E |
Hers wast thou if her face be now less bright or seem for an hour less brave | X |
Let but thine on her darkness shine thy saviour spirit revive and save | X |
Time shall see as the shadows flee her shame entombed in a shameful grave | X |
If death and not life were the portal | Y |
That opens on life at the last | T |
If the spirit of Sidney were mortal | Y |
And the past of it utterly past | T |
Fear stronger than honour was ever | F |
Forgetfulness mightier than fame | G |
Faith knows not if England should never | F |
Subside into shame | G |
Yea but yet is thy sun not set thy sunbright spirit of trust withdrawn | Q |
England's love of thee burns above all hopes that darken or fears that fawn | Q |
Hers thou art and the faithful heart that hopes begets upon darkness dawn | Q |
The sunset that sunrise will follow | V |
Is less than the dream of a dream | G |
The starshine on height and on hollow | V |
Sheds promise that dawn shall redeem | G |
The night if the daytime would hide it | T |
Shows lovelier aflame and afar | M |
Thy soul and thy Stella's beside it | T |
A star by a star | M |
Algernon Charles Swinburne
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