Les Casquets Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDEDAFAFAGAGDDDD GDGDAHAHBABAGGGGGBGB IIIIAJAJKLKLMAMAAGAG DADAABABIGIGNBNBADAD GDGD GDGDDODOAPAPADADIQIR STSTMDMDILILIDIDDDDD SGSGADADGDGDDDDDIUIU AGAGDADAGDGDAVAVKGKG SISIKDKDGDGDIHIHASAS IAIAIAIAALALSDSDKGKG SSSSFrom the depths of the waters that lighten and darken | A |
With change everlasting of life and of death | B |
Where hardly by noon if the lulled ear hearken | A |
It hears the sea's as a tired child's breath | B |
Where hardly by night if an eye dare scan it | C |
The storm lets shipwreck be seen or heard | D |
As the reefs to the waves and the foam to the granite | E |
Respond one merciless word | D |
Sheer seen and far in the sea's live heaven | A |
A seamew's flight from the wild sweet land | F |
White plumed with foam if the wind wake seven | A |
Black helms as of warriors that stir not stand | F |
From the depths that abide and the waves that environ | A |
Seven rocks rear heads that the midnight masks | G |
And the strokes of the swords of the storm are as iron | A |
On the steel of the wave worn casques | G |
Be night's dark word as the word of a wizard | D |
Be the word of dawn as a god's glad word | D |
Like heads of the spirits of darkness visored | D |
That see not for ever nor ever have heard | D |
These basnets plumed as for fight or plumeless | G |
Crowned of the storm and by storm discrowned | D |
Keep ward of the lists where the dead lie tombless | G |
And the tale of them is not found | D |
Nor eye may number nor hand may reckon | A |
The tithes that are taken of life by the dark | H |
Or the ways of the path if doom's hand beckon | A |
For the soul to fare as a helmless bark | H |
Fare forth on a way that no sign showeth | B |
Nor aught of its goal or of aught between | A |
A path for her flight which no fowl knoweth | B |
Which the vulture's eye hath not seen | A |
Here still though the wave and the wind seem lovers | G |
Lulled half asleep by their own soft words | G |
A dream as of death in the sun's light hovers | G |
And a sign in the motions and cries of the birds | G |
Dark auguries and keen from the sweet sea swallows | G |
Strike noon with a sense as of midnight's breath | B |
And the wing that flees and the wing that follows | G |
Are as types of the wings of death | B |
For here when the night roars round and under | I |
The white sea lightens and leaps like fire | I |
Acclaimed of storm and applauded in thunder | I |
Sits death on the throne of his crowned desire | I |
Yea hardly the hand of the god might fashion | A |
A seat more strong for his strength to take | J |
For the might of his heart and the pride of his passion | A |
To rejoice in the wars they make | J |
When the heart in him brightens with blitheness of battle | K |
And the depth of its thirst is fulfilled with strife | L |
And his ear with the ravage of bolts that rattle | K |
And the soul of death with the pride of life | L |
Till the darkness is loud with his dark thanksgiving | M |
And wind and cloud are as chords of his hymn | A |
There is nought save death in the deep night living | M |
And the whole night worships him | A |
Heaven's height bows down to him signed with his token | A |
And the sea's depth moved as a heart that yearns | G |
Heaves up to him strong as a heart half broken | A |
A heart that breaks in a prayer that burns | G |
Of cloud is the shrine of his worship moulded | D |
But the altar therein is of sea shaped stone | A |
Whereon with the strength of his wide wings folded | D |
Sits death in the dark alone | A |
He hears the word of his servant spoken | A |
The word that the wind his servant saith | B |
Storm writes on the front of the night his token | A |
That the skies may seem to bow down to death | B |
But the clouds that stoop and the storms that minister | I |
Serve but as thralls that fulfil their tasks | G |
And his seal is not set save here on the sinister | I |
Crests reared of the crownless casques | G |
Nor flame nor plume of the storm that crowned them | N |
Gilds or quickens their stark black strength | B |
Life lightens and murmurs and laughs right round them | N |
At peace with the noon's whole breadth and length | B |
At one with the heart of the soft souled heaven | A |
At one with the life of the kind wild land | D |
But its touch may unbrace not the strengths of the seven | A |
Casques hewn of the storm wind's hand | D |
No touch may loosen the black braced helmlets | G |
For the wild elves' heads of the wild waves wrought | D |
As flowers on the sea are her small green realmlets | G |
Like heavens made out of a child's heart's thought | D |
- | |
But these as thorns of her desolate places | G |
Strong fangs that fasten and hold lives fast | D |
And the vizors are framed as for formless faces | G |
That a dark dream sees go past | D |
Of fear and of fate are the frontlets fashioned | D |
And the heads behind them are dire and dumb | O |
When the heart of the darkness is scarce impassioned | D |
Thrilled scarce with sense of the wrath to come | O |
They bear the sign from of old engraven | A |
Though peace be round them and strife seem far | P |
That here is none but the night wind's haven | A |
With death for the harbour bar | P |
Of the iron of doom are the casquets carven | A |
That never the rivets thereof should burst | D |
When the heart of the darkness is hunger starven | A |
And the throats of the gulfs are agape for thirst | D |
And stars are as flowers that the wind bids wither | I |
And dawn is as hope struck dead by fear | Q |
The rage of the ravenous night sets hither | I |
And the crown of her work is here | R |
All shores about and afar lie lonely | S |
But lonelier are these than the heart of grief | T |
These loose linked rivets of rock whence only | S |
Strange life scarce gleams from the sheer main reef | T |
With a blind wan face in the wild wan morning | M |
With a live lit flame on its brows by night | D |
That the lost may lose not its word's mute warning | M |
And the blind by its grace have sight | D |
Here walled in with the wide waste water | I |
Grew the grace of a girl's lone life | L |
The sea's and the sea wind's foster daughter | I |
And peace was hers in the main mid strife | L |
For her were the rocks clothed round with thunder | I |
And the crests of them carved by the storm smith's craft | D |
For her was the mid storm rent in sunder | I |
As with passion that wailed and laughed | D |
For her the sunrise kindled and scattered | D |
The red rose leaflets of countless cloud | D |
For her the blasts of the springtide shattered | D |
The strengths reluctant of waves back bowed | D |
For her would winds in the mid sky levy | S |
Bright wars that hardly the night bade cease | G |
At noon when sleep on the sea lies heavy | S |
For her would the sun make peace | G |
Peace rose crowned with the dawn on golden | A |
Lit leagues of triumph that flamed and smiled | D |
Peace lay lulled in the moon beholden | A |
Warm darkness making the world's heart mild | D |
For all the wide waves' troubles and treasons | G |
One word only her soul's ear heard | D |
Speak from stormless and storm rent seasons | G |
And nought save peace was the word | D |
All her life waxed large with the light of it | D |
All her heart fed full on the sound | D |
Spirit and sense were exalted in sight of it | D |
Compassed and girdled and clothed with it round | D |
Sense was none but a strong still rapture | I |
Spirit was none but a joy sublime | U |
Of strength to curb and of craft to capture | I |
The craft and the strength of Time | U |
Time lay bound as in painless prison | A |
There closed in with a strait small space | G |
Never thereon as a strange light risen | A |
Change had unveiled for her grief's far face | G |
Three white walls flung out from the basement | D |
Girt the width of the world whereon | A |
Gazing at night from her flame lit casement | D |
She saw where the dark sea shone | A |
Hardly the breadth of a few brief paces | G |
Hardly the length of a strong man's stride | D |
The small court flower lit with children's faces | G |
Scarce held scope for a bud to hide | D |
Yet here was a man's brood reared and hidden | A |
Between the rocks and the towers and the foam | V |
Where peril and pity and peace were bidden | A |
As guests to the same sure home | V |
Here would pity keep watch for peril | K |
And surety comfort his heart with peace | G |
No flower save one where the reefs lie sterile | K |
Gave of the seed of its heart's increase | G |
Pity and surety and peace most lowly | S |
Were the root and the stem and the bloom of the flower | I |
And the light and the breath of the buds kept holy | S |
That maid's else blossomless bower | I |
With never a leaf but the seaweed's tangle | K |
Never a bird's but the seamew's note | D |
It heard all round it the strong storms wrangle | K |
Watched far past it the waste wrecks float | D |
But her soul was stilled by the sky's endurance | G |
And her heart made glad with the sea's content | D |
And her faith waxed more in the sun's assurance | G |
For the winds that came and went | D |
Sweetness was brought for her forth of the bitter | I |
Sea's strength and light of the deep sea's dark | H |
From where green lawns on Alderney glitter | I |
To the bastioned crags of the steeps of Sark | H |
These she knew from afar beholden | A |
And marvelled haply what life would be | S |
On moors that sunset and dawn leave golden | A |
In dells that smile on the sea | S |
And forth she fared as a stout souled rover | I |
For a brief blithe raid on the bounding brine | A |
And light winds ferried her light bark over | I |
To the lone soft island of fair limbed kine | A |
But the league long length of its wild green border | I |
And the small bright streets of serene St Anne | A |
Perplexed her sense with a strange disorder | I |
At sight of the works of man | A |
The world was here and the world's confusion | A |
And the dust of the wheels of revolving life | L |
Pain labour change and the fierce illusion | A |
Of strife more vain than the sea's old strife | L |
And her heart within her was vexed and dizzy | S |
The sense of her soul as a wheel that whirled | D |
She might not endure for a space that busy | S |
Loud coil of the troublous world | D |
Too full she said was the world of trouble | K |
Too dense with noise of contentious things | G |
And shews less bright than the blithe foam's bubble | K |
As home she fared on the smooth wind's wings | G |
For joy grows loftier in air more lonely | S |
Where only the sea's brood fain would be | S |
Where only the heart may receive in it only | S |
The love of the heart of the sea | S |
Algernon Charles Swinburne
(1)
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