Mater Dolorosa Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCC DDEBFF GGHHII JJKKLL MMNNOO PPBBNN QBQIICC RRSSTT CCUUVV WXBBTT| Who is this that sits by the way by the wild wayside | A |
| In a rent stained raiment the robe of a cast off bride | A |
| In the dust in the rainfall sitting with soiled feet bare | B |
| With the night for a garment upon her with torn wet hair | B |
| She is fairer of face than the daughters of men and her eyes | C |
| Worn through with her tears are deep as the depth of skies | C |
| - | |
| This is she for whose sake being fallen for whose abject sake | D |
| Earth groans in the blackness of darkness and men's hearts break | D |
| This is she for whose love having seen her the men that were | E |
| Poured life out as water and shed their souls upon air | B |
| This is she for whose glory their years were counted as foam | F |
| Whose face was a light upon Greece was a fire upon Rome | F |
| - | |
| Is it now not surely a vain thing a foolish and vain | G |
| To sit down by her mourn to her serve her partake in the pain | G |
| She is grey with the dust of time on his manifold ways | H |
| Where her faint feet stumble and falter through year long days | H |
| Shall she help us at all O fools give fruit or give fame | I |
| Who herself is a name despised a rejected name | I |
| - | |
| We have not served her for guerdon If any do so | J |
| That his mouth may be sweet with such honey we care not to know | J |
| We have drunk from a wine unsweetened a perilous cup | K |
| A draught very bitter The kings of the earth stood up | K |
| And the rulers took counsel together to smite her and slay | L |
| And the blood of her wounds is given us to drink today | L |
| - | |
| Can these bones live or the leaves that are dead leaves bud | M |
| Or the dead blood drawn from her veins be in your veins blood | M |
| Will ye gather up water again that was drawn and shed | N |
| In the blood is the life of the veins and her veins are dead | N |
| For the lives that are over are over and past things past | O |
| She had her day and it is not was first and is last | O |
| - | |
| Is it nothing unto you then all ye that pass by | P |
| If her breath be left in her lips if she live now or die | P |
| Behold now O people and say if she be not fair | B |
| Whom your fathers followed to find her with praise and prayer | B |
| And rejoiced having found her though roof they had none nor bread | N |
| But ye care not what is it to you if her day be dead | N |
| - | |
| It was well with our fathers their sound was in all men's lands | Q |
| There was fire in their hearts and the hunger of fight in their | B |
| hands | Q |
| Naked and strong they went forth in her strength like flame | I |
| For her love's and her name's sake of old her republican name | I |
| But their children by kings made quiet by priests made wise | C |
| Love better the heat of their hearths than the light of her eyes | C |
| - | |
| Are they children of these thy children indeed who have sold | R |
| O golden goddess the light of thy face for gold | R |
| Are they sons indeed of the sons of thy dayspring of hope | S |
| Whose lives are in fief of an emperor whose souls of a Pope | S |
| Hide then thine head O beloved thy time is done | T |
| Thy kingdom is broken in heaven and blind thy sun | T |
| - | |
| What sleep is upon you to dream she indeed shall rise | C |
| When the hopes are dead in her heart as the tears in her eyes | C |
| If ye sing of her dead will she stir if ye weep for her weep | U |
| Come away now leave her what hath she to do but sleep | U |
| But ye that mourn are alive and have years to be | V |
| And life is good and the world is wiser than we | V |
| - | |
| Yea wise is the world and mighty with years to give | W |
| And years to promise but how long now shall it live | X |
| And foolish and poor is faith and her ways are bare | B |
| Till she find the way of the sun and the morning air | B |
| In that hour shall this dead face shine as the face of the sun | T |
| And the soul of man and her soul and the world's be one | T |
Algernon Charles Swinburne
(1)
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