Light: An Epicede Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A ABABBCDCDDEFEFFGHGHH AAAAAIAIAACECEEAGAGG| To Philip Bourke Marston | A |
| - | |
| - | |
| Love will not weep because the seal is broken | A |
| That sealed upon a life beloved and brief | B |
| Darkness and let but song break through for token | A |
| How deep too far for even thy song's relief | B |
| Slept in thy soul the secret springs of grief | B |
| Thy song may soothe full many a soul hereafter | C |
| As tears if tears will come dissolve despair | D |
| As here but late with smile more bright than laughter | C |
| Thy sweet strange yearning eyes would seem to bear | D |
| Witness that joy might cleave the clouds of care | D |
| Two days agone and love was one with pity | E |
| When love gave thought wings toward the glimmering goal | F |
| Where as a shrine lit in some darkling city | E |
| Shone soft the shrouded image of thy soul | F |
| And now thou art healed of life thou art healed and whole | F |
| Yea two days since all we that loved thee pitied | G |
| And now with wondering love with shame of face | H |
| We think how foolish now how far unfitted | G |
| Should be from us toward thee who hast run thy race | H |
| Pity toward thee who hast won the painless place | H |
| The painless world of death yet unbeholden | A |
| Of eyes that dream what light now lightens thine | A |
| And will not weep Thought yearning toward those olden | A |
| Dear hours that sorrow sees and sees not shine | A |
| Bows tearless down before a flameless shrine | A |
| A flameless altar here of life and sorrow | I |
| Quenched and consumed together These were one | A |
| One thing for thee as night was one with morrow | I |
| And utter darkness with the sovereign sun | A |
| And now thou seest life sorrow and darkness done | A |
| And yet love yearns again to win thee hither | C |
| Blind love and loveless and unworthy thee | E |
| Here where I watch the hours of darkness wither | C |
| Here where mine eyes were glad and sad to see | E |
| Thine that could see not mine though turned on me | E |
| But now if aught beyond sweet sleep lie hidden | A |
| And sleep be sealed not fast on dead men's sight | G |
| For ever thine hath grace for ours forbidden | A |
| And sees us compassed round with change and night | G |
| Yet light like thine is ours if love be light | G |
Algernon Charles Swinburne
(1)
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