Dedication To Alice Swinburne Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCBCCDDD A EAEAAFFF A GHGHHEEE G ICICCJKJ C LMMMMNNN G OPOPPQQQ G RSRSSDDD G DMDMMTTT M BUBUUGGG| I | A |
| - | |
| The love that comes and goes like wind or fire | B |
| Hath words and wings wherewith to speak and flee | C |
| But love more deep than passion's deep desire | B |
| Clear and inviolable as the unsounded sea | C |
| What wings of words may serve to set it free | C |
| To lift and lead it homeward Time and death | D |
| Are less than love or man's live spirit saith | D |
| False when he deems his life is more than breath | D |
| - | |
| II | A |
| - | |
| No words may utter love no sovereign song | E |
| Speak all it would for love's sake Yet would I | A |
| Fain cast in moulded rhymes that do me wrong | E |
| Some little part of all my love but why | A |
| Should weak and wingless words be fain to fly | A |
| For us the years that live not are not dead | F |
| Past days and present in our hearts are wed | F |
| My song can say no more than love hath said | F |
| - | |
| III | A |
| - | |
| Love needs nor song nor speech to say what love | G |
| Would speak or sing were speech and song not weak | H |
| To bear the sense belated soul above | G |
| And bid the lips of silence breathe and speak | H |
| Nor power nor will has love to find or seek | H |
| Words indiscoverable ampler strains of song | E |
| Than ever hailed him fair or shewed him strong | E |
| And less than these should do him worse than wrong | E |
| - | |
| IV | G |
| - | |
| We who remember not a day wherein | I |
| We have not loved each other who can see | C |
| No time since time bade first our days begin | I |
| Within the sweep of memory's wings when we | C |
| Have known not what each other's love must be | C |
| We are well content to know it and rest on this | J |
| And call not words to witness that it is | K |
| To love aloud is oft to love amiss | J |
| - | |
| V | C |
| - | |
| But if the gracious witness borne of words | L |
| Take not from speechless love the secret grace | M |
| That binds it round with silence and engirds | M |
| Its heart with memories fair as heaven's own face | M |
| Let love take courage for a little space | M |
| To speak and be rebuked not of the soul | N |
| Whose utterance ere the unwitting speech be whole | N |
| Rebukes itself and craves again control | N |
| - | |
| VI | G |
| - | |
| A ninefold garland wrought of song flowers nine | O |
| Wound each with each in chance inwoven accord | P |
| Here at your feet I lay as on a shrine | O |
| Whereof the holiest love that lives is lord | P |
| With faint strange hues their leaves are freaked and scored | P |
| The fable flowering land wherein they grew | Q |
| Hath dreams for stars and grey romance for dew | Q |
| Perchance no flower thence plucked may flower anew | Q |
| - | |
| VII | G |
| - | |
| No part have these wan legends in the sun | R |
| Whose glory lightens Greece and gleams on Rome | S |
| Their elders live but these their day is done | R |
| Their records written of the wind in foam | S |
| Fly down the wind and darkness takes them home | S |
| What Homer saw what Virgil dreamed was truth | D |
| And dies not being divine but whence in sooth | D |
| Might shades that never lived win deathless youth | D |
| - | |
| VIII | G |
| - | |
| The fields of fable by the feet of faith | D |
| Untrodden bloom not where such deep mist drives | M |
| Dead fancy's ghost not living fancy's wraith | D |
| Is now the storied sorrow that survives | M |
| Faith in the record of these lifeless lives | M |
| Yet Milton's sacred feet have lingered there | T |
| His lips have made august the fabulous air | T |
| His hands have touched and left the wild weeds fair | T |
| - | |
| IX | M |
| - | |
| So in some void and thought untrammelled hour | B |
| Let these find grace my sister in your sight | U |
| Whose glance but cast on casual things hath power | B |
| To do the sun's work bidding all be bright | U |
| With comfort given of love for love is light | U |
| Were all the world of song made mine to give | G |
| The best were yours of all its flowers that live | G |
| Though least of all be this my gift forgive | G |
Algernon Charles Swinburne
(1)
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