Off Shore Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABBCDCDDAEAEEAFAFF GHGHHIJIJJKLKLLMNMNN OPOPPOIOIIKQKRQOIOII IIIIIIIIIIOIOIIISISS KIKIILILIITUTUUTJTJJ IIIIIIKIKKKKKKKGKGKK IIIIIISISSJIJIIIIIII KVKVVKOKOOIOIOOJUUUU AWAWWIOIOOXKXKKUIUII OIOIIOOOOOKIKIIYIAII OOOOOWhen the might of the summer | A |
Is most on the sea | B |
When the days overcome her | A |
With joy but to be | B |
With rapture of royal enchantment and sorcery that sets her not free | B |
But for hours upon hours | C |
As a thrall she remains | D |
Spell bound as with flowers | C |
And content in their chains | D |
And her loud steeds fret not and lift not a lock of their deep white manes | D |
Then only far under | A |
In the depths of her hold | E |
Some gleam of its wonder | A |
Man's eye may behold | E |
Its wild weed forests of crimson and russet and olive and gold | E |
Still deeper and dimmer | A |
And goodlier they glow | F |
For the eyes of the swimmer | A |
Who scans them below | F |
As he crosses the zone of their flowerage that knows not of sunshine and snow | F |
Soft blossomless frondage | G |
And foliage that gleams | H |
As to prisoners in bondage | G |
The light of their dreams | H |
The desire of a dawn unbeholden with hope on the wings of its beams | H |
Not as prisoners entombed | I |
Waxen haggard and wizen | J |
But consoled and illumed | I |
In the depths of their prison | J |
With delight of the light everlasting and vision of dawn on them risen | J |
From the banks and the beds | K |
Of the waters divine | L |
They lift up their heads | K |
And the flowers of them shine | L |
Through the splendour of darkness that clothes them of water that glimmers like wine | L |
Bright bank over bank | M |
Making glorious the gloom | N |
Soft rank upon rank | M |
Strange bloom after bloom | N |
They kindle the liquid low twilight the dusk of the dim sea's womb | N |
Through the subtle and tangible | O |
Gloom without form | P |
Their branches infrangible | O |
Ever of storm | P |
Spread softer their sprays than the shoots of the woodland when April is warm | P |
As the flight of the thunder full | O |
Charged with its word | I |
Dividing the wonderful | O |
Depths like a bird | I |
Speaks wrath and delight to the heart of the night that exults to have heard | I |
So swiftly though soundless | K |
In silence's ear | Q |
Light winged from the boundless | K |
Blue depths full of cheer | R |
Speaks joy to the heart of the waters that part not before him but hear | Q |
Light perfect and visible | O |
Godhead of God | I |
God indivisible | O |
Lifts but his rod | I |
And the shadows are scattered in sunder and darkness is light at his nod | I |
At the touch of his wand | I |
At the nod of his head | I |
From the spaces beyond | I |
Where the dawn hath her bed | I |
Earth water and air are transfigured and rise as one risen from the dead | I |
He puts forth his hand | I |
And the mountains are thrilled | I |
To the heart as they stand | I |
In his presence fulfilled | I |
With his glory that utters his grace upon earth and her sorrows are stilled | I |
The moan of her travail | O |
That groans for the light | I |
Till dayspring unravel | O |
The weft of the night | I |
At the sound of the strings of the music of morning falls dumb with delight | I |
He gives forth his word | I |
And the word that he saith | S |
Ere well it be heard | I |
Strikes darkness to death | S |
For the thought of his heart is the sunrise and dawn as the sound of his breath | S |
And the strength of its pulses | K |
That passion makes proud | I |
Confounds and convulses | K |
The depths of the cloud | I |
Of the darkness that heaven was engirt with divided and rent as a shroud | I |
As the veil of the shrine | L |
Of the temple of old | I |
When darkness divine | L |
Over noonday was rolled | I |
So the heart of the night by the pulse of the light is convulsed and controlled | I |
And the sea's heart groaning | T |
For glories withdrawn | U |
And the waves' mouths moaning | T |
All night for the dawn | U |
Are uplift as the hearts and the mouths of the singers on leaside and lawn | U |
And the sound of the quiring | T |
Of all these as one | J |
Desired and desiring | T |
Till dawn's will be done | J |
Fills full with delight of them heaven till it burns as the heart of the sun | J |
Till the waves too inherit | I |
And waters take part | I |
In the sense of the spirit | I |
That breathes from his heart | I |
And are kindled with music as fire when the lips of the morning part | I |
With music unheard | I |
In the light of her lips | K |
In the life giving word | I |
Of the dewfall that drips | K |
On the grasses of earth and the wind that enkindles the wings of the ships | K |
White glories of wings | K |
As of seafaring birds | K |
That flock from the springs | K |
Of the sunrise in herds | K |
With the wind for a herdsman and hasten or halt at the change of his words | K |
As the watchword's change | G |
When the wind's note shifts | K |
And the skies grow strange | G |
And the white squall drifts | K |
Up sharp from the sea line vexing the sea till the low cloud lifts | K |
At the charge of his word | I |
Bidding pause bidding haste | I |
When the ranks are stirred | I |
And the lines displaced | I |
They scatter as wild swans parting adrift on the wan green waste | I |
At the hush of his word | I |
In a pause of his breath | S |
When the waters have heard | I |
His will that he saith | S |
They stand as a flock penned close in its fold for division of death | S |
As a flock by division | J |
Of death to be thinned | I |
As the shades in a vision | J |
Of spirits that sinned | I |
So glimmer their shrouds and their sheetings as clouds on the stream of the wind | I |
But the sun stands fast | I |
And the sea burns bright | I |
And the flight of them past | I |
Is no more than the flight | I |
Of the snow soft swarm of serene wings poised and afloat in the light | I |
Like flowers upon flowers | K |
In a festival way | V |
When hours after hours | K |
Shed grace on the day | V |
White blossomlike butterflies hover and gleam through the snows of the spray | V |
Like snow coloured petals | K |
Of blossoms that flee | O |
From storm that unsettles | K |
The flower as the tree | O |
They flutter a legion of flowers on the wing through the field of the sea | O |
Through the furrowless field | I |
Where the foam blossoms blow | O |
And the secrets are sealed | I |
Of their harvest below | O |
They float in the path of the sunbeams as flakes or as blossoms of snow | O |
Till the sea's ways darken | J |
And the God withdrawn | U |
Give ear not or hearken | U |
If prayer on him fawn | U |
And the sun's self seem but a shadow the noon as a ghost of the dawn | U |
No shadow but rather | A |
God father of song | W |
Shew grace to me Father | A |
God loved of me long | W |
That I lose not the light of thy face that my trust in thee work me not wrong | W |
While yet I make forward | I |
With face toward thee | O |
Not turned yet in shoreward | I |
Be thine upon me | O |
Be thy light on my forehead or ever I turn it again from the sea | O |
As a kiss on my brow | X |
Be the light of thy grace | K |
Be thy glance on me now | X |
From the pride of thy place | K |
As the sign of a sire to a son be the light on my face of thy face | K |
Thou wast father of olden | U |
Times hailed and adored | I |
And the sense of thy golden | U |
Great harp's monochord | I |
Was the joy in the soul of the singers that hailed thee for master and lord | I |
Fair father of all | O |
In thy ways that have trod | I |
That have risen at thy call | O |
That have thrilled at thy nod | I |
Arise shine lighten upon me O sun that we see to be God | I |
As my soul has been dutiful | O |
Only to thee | O |
O God most beautiful | O |
Lighten thou me | O |
As I swim through the dim long rollers with eyelids uplift from the sea | O |
Be praised and adored of us | K |
All in accord | I |
Father and lord of us | K |
Alway adored | I |
The slayer and the stayer and the harper the light of us all and our lord | I |
At the sound of thy lyre | Y |
At the touch of thy rod | I |
Air quickens to fire | A |
By the foot of thee trod | I |
The saviour and healer and singer the living and visible God | I |
The years are before thee | O |
As shadows of thee | O |
As men that adore thee | O |
As cloudlets that flee | O |
But thou art the God and thy kingdom is heaven and thy shrine is the sea | O |
Algernon Charles Swinburne
(1)
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