On The South Coast Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BBBCCCBBBDDDBBBBBBEE EFFFGGGBBBHHHBBBIIIB BBBBBBBBJKJDDDLLLBBB BBBBBBMMMNNNBBBOOOPP PGGGQQQBBBBBBPNNRRRB BBSSSDDD| To Theodore Watts | A |
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| Hills and valleys where April rallies his radiant squadron of flowers and birds | B |
| Steep strange beaches and lustrous reaches of fluctuant sea that the land engirds | B |
| Fields and downs that the sunrise crowns with life diviner than lives in words | B |
| Day by day of resurgent May salute the sun with sublime acclaim | C |
| Change and brighten with hours that lighten and darken girdled with cloud or flame | C |
| Earth's fair face in alternate grace beams blooms and lowers and is yet the same | C |
| Twice each day the divine sea's play makes glad with glory that comes and goes | B |
| Field and street that her waves keep sweet when past the bounds of their old repose | B |
| Fast and fierce in renewed reverse the foam flecked estuary ebbs and flows | B |
| Broad and bold through the stays of old staked fast with trunks of the wildwood tree | D |
| Up from shoreward impelled far forward by marsh and meadow by lawn and lea | D |
| Inland still at her own wild will swells rolls and revels the surging sea | D |
| Strong as time and as faith sublime clothed round with shadows of hopes and fears | B |
| Nights and morrows and joys and sorrows alive with passion of prayers and tears | B |
| Stands the shrine that has seen decline eight hundred waxing and waning years | B |
| Tower set square to the storms of air and change of season that glooms and glows | B |
| Wall and roof of it tempest proof and equal ever to suns and snows | B |
| Bright with riches of radiant niches and pillars smooth as a straight stem grows | B |
| Aisle and nave that the whelming wave of time has whelmed not or touched or neared | E |
| Arch and vault without stain or fault by hands of craftsmen we know not reared | E |
| Time beheld them and time was quelled and change passed by them as one that feared | E |
| Time that flies as a dream and dies as dreams that die with the sleep they feed | F |
| Here alone in a garb of stone incarnate stands as a god indeed | F |
| Stern and fair and of strength to bear all burdens mortal to man's frail seed | F |
| Men and years are as leaves or tears that storm or sorrow is fain to shed | G |
| These go by as the winds that sigh and none takes note of them quick or dead | G |
| Time whose breath is their birth and death folds here his pinions and bows his head | G |
| Still the sun that beheld begun the work wrought here of unwearied hands | B |
| Sees as then though the Red King's men held ruthless rule over lawless lands | B |
| Stand their massive design impassive pure and proud as a virgin stands | B |
| Statelier still as the years fulfil their count subserving her sacred state | H |
| Grows the hoary grey church whose story silence utters and age makes great | H |
| Statelier seems it than shines in dreams the face unveiled of unvanquished fate | H |
| Fate more high than the star shown sky more deep than waters unsounded shines | B |
| Keen and far as the final star on souls that seek not for charms or signs | B |
| Yet more bright is the love shown light of men's hands lighted in songs or shrines | B |
| Love and trust that the grave's deep dust can soil not neither may fear put out | I |
| Witness yet that their record set stands fast though years be as hosts in rout | I |
| Spent and slain but the signs remain that beat back darkness and cast forth doubt | I |
| Men that wrought by the grace of thought and toil things goodlier than praise dare trace | B |
| Fair as all that the world may call most fair save only the sea's own face | B |
| Shrines or songs that the world's change wrongs not live by grace of their own gift's grace | B |
| Dead their names that the night reclaims alive their works that the day relumes | B |
| Sink and stand as in stone and sand engraven none may behold their tombs | B |
| Nights and days shall record their praise while here this flower of their grafting blooms | B |
| Flower more fair than the sun thrilled air bids laugh and lighten and wax and rise | B |
| Fruit more bright than the fervent light sustains with strength from the kindled skies | B |
| Flower and fruit that the deathless root of man's love rears though the man's name dies | B |
| Stately stands it the work of hands unknown of statelier afar and near | J |
| Rise around it the heights that bound our landward gaze from the seaboard here | K |
| Downs that swerve and aspire in curve and change of heights that the dawn holds dear | J |
| Dawn falls fair on the grey walls there confronting dawn on the low green lea | D |
| Lone and sweet as for fairies' feet held sacred silent and strange and free | D |
| Wild and wet with its rills but yet more fair falls dawn on the fairer sea | D |
| Eastward round by the high green bound of hills that fold the remote fields in | L |
| Strive and shine on the low sea line fleet waves and beams when the days begin | L |
| Westward glow when the days burn low the sun that yields and the stars that win | L |
| Rose red eve on the seas that heave sinks fair as dawn when the first ray peers | B |
| Winds are glancing from sunbright Lancing to Shoreham crowned with the grace of years | B |
| Shoreham clad with the sunset glad and grave with glory that death reveres | B |
| Death more proud than the kings' heads bowed before him stronger than all things bows | B |
| Here his head as if death were dead and kingship plucked from his crownless brows | B |
| Life hath here such a face of cheer as change appals not and time avows | B |
| Skies fulfilled with the sundown stilled and splendid spread as a flower that spreads | B |
| Pave with rarer device and fairer than heaven's the luminous oyster beds | B |
| Grass embanked and in square plots ranked inlaid with gems that the sundown sheds | B |
| Squares more bright and with lovelier light than heaven that kindled it shines with shine | M |
| Warm and soft as the dome aloft but heavenlier yet than the sun's own shrine | M |
| Heaven is high but the water sky lit here seems deeper and more divine | M |
| Flowers on flowers that the whole world's bowers may show not here may the sunset show | N |
| Lightly graven in the waters paven with ghostly gold by the clouds aglow | N |
| Bright as love is the vault above but lovelier lightens the wave below | N |
| Rosy grey or as fiery spray full plumed or greener than emerald gleams | B |
| Plot by plot as the skies allot for each its glory divine as dreams | B |
| Lit with fire of appeased desire which sounds the secret of all that seems | B |
| Dreams that show what we fain would know and know not save by the grace of sleep | O |
| Sleep whose hands have removed the bands that eyes long waking and fain to weep | O |
| Feel fast bound on them light around them strange and darkness above them steep | O |
| Yet no vision that heals division of love from love and renews awhile | P |
| Life and breath in the lips where death has quenched the spirit of speech and smile | P |
| Shows on earth or in heaven's mid mirth where no fears enter or doubts defile | P |
| Aught more fair than the radiant air and water here by the twilight wed | G |
| Here made one by the waning sun whose last love quickens to rosebright red | G |
| Half the crown of the soft high down that rears to northward its wood girt head | G |
| There when day is at height of sway men's eyes who stand as we oft have stood | Q |
| High where towers with its world of flowers the golden spinny that flanks the wood | Q |
| See before and around them shore and seaboard glad as their gifts are good | Q |
| Higher and higher to the north aspire the green smooth swelling unending downs | B |
| East and west on the brave earth's breast glow girdle jewels of gleaming towns | B |
| Southward shining the lands declining subside in peace that the sea's light crowns | B |
| Westward wide in its fruitful pride the plain lies lordly with plenteous grace | B |
| Fair as dawn's when the fields and lawns desire her glitters the glad land's face | B |
| Eastward yet is the sole sign set of elder days and a lordlier race | B |
| Down beneath us afar where seethe in wilder weather the tides aflow | P |
| Hurled up hither and drawn down thither in quest of rest that they may not know | N |
| Still as dew on a flower the blue broad stream now sleeps in the fields below | N |
| Mild and bland in the fair green land it smiles and takes to its heart the sky | R |
| Scarce the meads and the fens the reeds and grasses still as they stand or lie | R |
| Wear the palm of a statelier calm than rests on waters that pass them by | R |
| Yet shall these when the winds and seas of equal days and coequal nights | B |
| Rage rejoice and uplift a voice whose sound is even as a sword that smites | B |
| Felt and heard as a doomsman's word from seaward reaches to landward heights | B |
| Lift their heart up and take their part of triumph swollen and strong with rage | S |
| Rage elate with desire and great with pride that tempest and storm assuage | S |
| So their chime in the ear of time has rung from age to rekindled age | S |
| Fair and dear is the land's face here and fair man's work as a man's may be | D |
| Dear and fair as the sunbright air is here the record that speaks him free | D |
| Free by birth of a sacred earth and regent ever of all the sea | D |
Algernon Charles Swinburne
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