Neap-tide Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABBABCDDCDEFFEFGHIGI JKKJKLMMLMNOONOPQQPQ RSSRSTOOTOUOOUOVWWVW XYYXYFar off is the sea and the land is afar | A |
The low banks reach at the sky | B |
Seen hence and are heavenward high | B |
Though light for the leap of a boy they are | A |
And the far sea late was nigh | B |
The fair wild fields and the circling downs | C |
The bright sweet marshes and meads | D |
All glorious with flowerlike weeds | D |
The great grey churches the sea washed towns | C |
Recede as a dream recedes | D |
The world draws back and the world's light wanes | E |
As a dream dies down and is dead | F |
And the clouds and the gleams overhead | F |
Change and change and the sea remains | E |
A shadow of dreamlike dread | F |
Wild and woful and pale and grey | G |
A shadow of sleepless fear | H |
A corpse with the night for bier | I |
The fairest thing that beholds the day | G |
Lies haggard and hopeless here | I |
And the wind's wings broken and spent subside | J |
And the dumb waste world is hoar | K |
And strange as the sea the shore | K |
And shadows of shapeless dreams abide | J |
Where life may abide no more | K |
A sail to seaward a sound from shoreward | L |
And the spell were broken that seems | M |
To reign in a world of dreams | M |
Where vainly the dreamer's feet make forward | L |
And vainly the low sky gleams | M |
The sea forsaken forlorn deep wrinkled | N |
Salt slanting stretches of sand | O |
That slope to the seaward hand | O |
Were they fain of the ripples that flashed and twinkled | N |
And laughed as they struck the strand | O |
As bells on the reins of the fairies ring | P |
The ripples that kissed them rang | Q |
The light from the sundawn sprang | Q |
And the sweetest of songs that the world may sing | P |
Was theirs when the full sea sang | Q |
Now no light is in heaven and now | R |
Not a note of the sea wind's tune | S |
Rings hither the bleak sky's boon | S |
Grants hardly sight of a grey sun's brow | R |
A sun more sad than the moon | S |
More sad than a moon that clouds beleaguer | T |
And storm is a scourge to smite | O |
The sick sun's shadowlike light | O |
Grows faint as the clouds and the waves wax eager | T |
And withers away from sight | O |
The day's heart cowers and the night's heart quickens | U |
Full fain would the day be dead | O |
And the stark night reign in his stead | O |
The sea falls dumb as the sea fog thickens | U |
And the sunset dies for dread | O |
Outside of the range of time whose breath | V |
Is keen as the manslayer's knife | W |
And his peace but a truce for strife | W |
Who knows if haply the shadow of death | V |
May be not the light of life | W |
For the storm and the rain and the darkness borrow | X |
But an hour from the suns to be | Y |
But a strange swift passage that we | Y |
May rejoice who have mourned not to day to morrow | X |
In the sun and the wind and the sea | Y |
Algernon Charles Swinburne
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