Prelude Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABCACACDD EEFFEFEFGG HHIIHIHIJJ KKCCLCKCCC MMNNMNMNOO PPOOPOPOQQ RRCCRCRCSS OOCCOCOCTT CCUUCUCUOO OOVVOVOVOO CCOOCOCOCC WWWWWWWWCC XXYYXYXYOO WWOOWOWOZZ A2A2OOA2OA2OKK OOB2B2OB2OB2OO MMCCMCMCZZ WWC2C2WC2WCMM A2A2YYA2YA2YTTBetween the green bud and the red | A |
Youth sat and sang by Time and shed | A |
From eyes and tresses flowers and tears | B |
From heart and spirit hopes and fears | C |
Upon the hollow stream whose bed | A |
Is channelled by the foamless years | C |
And with the white the gold haired head | A |
Mixed running locks and in Time's ears | C |
Youth's dreams hung singing and Time's truth | D |
Was half not harsh in the ears of Youth | D |
- | |
Between the bud and the blown flower | E |
Youth talked with joy and grief an hour | E |
With footless joy and wingless grief | F |
And twin born faith and disbelief | F |
Who share the seasons to devour | E |
And long ere these made up their sheaf | F |
Felt the winds round him shake and shower | E |
The rose red and the blood red leaf | F |
Delight whose germ grew never grain | G |
And passion dyed in its own pain | G |
- | |
Then he stood up and trod to dust | H |
Fear and desire mistrust and trust | H |
And dreams of bitter sleep and sweet | I |
And bound for sandals on his feet | I |
Knowledge and patience of what must | H |
And what things may be in the heat | I |
And cold of years that rot and rust | H |
And alter and his spirit's meat | I |
Was freedom and his staff was wrought | J |
Of strength and his cloak woven of thought | J |
- | |
For what has he whose will sees clear | K |
To do with doubt and faith and fear | K |
Swift hopes and slow despondencies | C |
His heart is equal with the sea's | C |
And with the sea wind's and his ear | L |
Is level to the speech of these | C |
And his soul communes and takes cheer | K |
With the actual earth's equalities | C |
Air light and night hills winds and streams | C |
And seeks not strength from strengthless dreams | C |
- | |
His soul is even with the sun | M |
Whose spirit and whose eye are one | M |
Who seeks not stars by day nor light | N |
And heavy heat of day by night | N |
Him can no God cast down whom none | M |
Can lift in hope beyond the height | N |
Of fate and nature and things done | M |
By the calm rule of might and right | N |
That bids men be and bear and do | O |
And die beneath blind skies or blue | O |
- | |
To him the lights of even and morn | P |
Speak no vain things of love or scorn | P |
Fancies and passions miscreate | O |
By man in things dispassionate | O |
Nor holds he fellowship forlorn | P |
With souls that pray and hope and hate | O |
And doubt they had better not been born | P |
And fain would lure or scare off fate | O |
And charm their doomsman from their doom | Q |
And make fear dig its own false tomb | Q |
- | |
He builds not half of doubts and half | R |
Of dreams his own soul's cenotaph | R |
Whence hopes and fears with helpless eyes | C |
Wrapt loose in cast off cerecloths rise | C |
And dance and wring their hands and laugh | R |
And weep thin tears and sigh light sighs | C |
And without living lips would quaff | R |
The living spring in man that lies | C |
And drain his soul of faith and strength | S |
It might have lived on a life's length | S |
- | |
He hath given himself and hath not sold | O |
To God for heaven or man for gold | O |
Or grief for comfort that it gives | C |
Or joy for grief's restoratives | C |
He hath given himself to time whose fold | O |
Shuts in the mortal flock that lives | C |
On its plain pasture's heat and cold | O |
And the equal year's alternatives | C |
Earth heaven and time death life and he | T |
Endure while they shall be to be | T |
- | |
Yet between death and life are hours | C |
To flush with love and hide in flowers | C |
What profit save in these men cry | U |
Ah see between soft earth and sky | U |
What only good things here are ours | C |
They say what better wouldst thou try | U |
What sweeter sing of or what powers | C |
Serve that will give thee ere thou die | U |
More joy to sing and be less sad | O |
More heart to play and grow more glad | O |
- | |
Play then and sing we too have played | O |
We likewise in that subtle shade | O |
We too have twisted through our hair | V |
Such tendrils as the wild Loves wear | V |
And heard what mirth the Maenads made | O |
Till the wind blew our garlands bare | V |
And left their roses disarrayed | O |
And smote the summer with strange air | V |
And disengirdled and discrowned | O |
The limbs and locks that vine wreaths bound | O |
- | |
We too have tracked by star proof trees | C |
The tempest of the Thyiades | C |
Scare the loud night on hills that hid | O |
The blood feasts of the Bassarid | O |
Heard their song's iron cadences | C |
Fright the wolf hungering from the kid | O |
Outroar the lion throated seas | C |
Outchide the north wind if it chid | O |
And hush the torrent tongued ravines | C |
With thunders of their tambourines | C |
- | |
But the fierce flute whose notes acclaim | W |
Dim goddesses of fiery fame | W |
Cymbal and clamorous kettledrum | W |
Timbrels and tabrets all are dumb | W |
That turned the high chill air to flame | W |
The singing tongues of fire are numb | W |
That called on Cotys by her name | W |
Edonian till they felt her come | W |
And maddened and her mystic face | C |
Lightened along the streams of Thrace | C |
- | |
For Pleasure slumberless and pale | X |
And Passion with rejected veil | X |
Pass and the tempest footed throng | Y |
Of hours that follow them with song | Y |
Till their feet flag and voices fail | X |
And lips that were so loud so long | Y |
Learn silence or a wearier wail | X |
So keen is change and time so strong | Y |
To weave the robes of life and rend | O |
And weave again till life have end | O |
- | |
But weak is change but strengthless time | W |
To take the light from heaven or climb | W |
The hills of heaven with wasting feet | O |
Songs they can stop that earth found meet | O |
But the stars keep their ageless rhyme | W |
Flowers they can slay that spring thought sweet | O |
But the stars keep their spring sublime | W |
Passions and pleasures can defeat | O |
Actions and agonies control | Z |
And life and death but not the soul | Z |
- | |
Because man's soul is man's God still | A2 |
What wind soever waft his will | A2 |
Across the waves of day and night | O |
To port or shipwreck left or right | O |
By shores and shoals of good and ill | A2 |
And still its flame at mainmast height | O |
Through the rent air that foam flakes fill | A2 |
Sustains the indomitable light | O |
Whence only man hath strength to steer | K |
Or helm to handle without fear | K |
- | |
Save his own soul's light overhead | O |
None leads him and none ever led | O |
Across birth's hidden harbour bar | B2 |
Past youth where shoreward shallows are | B2 |
Through age that drives on toward the red | O |
Vast void of sunset hailed from far | B2 |
To the equal waters of the dead | O |
Save his own soul he hath no star | B2 |
And sinks except his own soul guide | O |
Helmless in middle turn of tide | O |
- | |
No blast of air or fire of sun | M |
Puts out the light whereby we run | M |
With girded loins our lamplit race | C |
And each from each takes heart of grace | C |
And spirit till his turn be done | M |
And light of face from each man's face | C |
In whom the light of trust is one | M |
Since only souls that keep their place | C |
By their own light and watch things roll | Z |
And stand have light for any soul | Z |
- | |
A little time we gain from time | W |
To set our seasons in some chime | W |
For harsh or sweet or loud or low | C2 |
With seasons played out long ago | C2 |
And souls that in their time and prime | W |
Took part with summer or with snow | C2 |
Lived abject lives out or sublime | W |
And had their chance of seed to sow | C |
For service or disservice done | M |
To those days daed and this their son | M |
- | |
A little time that we may fill | A2 |
Or with such good works or such ill | A2 |
As loose the bonds or make them strong | Y |
Wherein all manhood suffers wrong | Y |
By rose hung river and light foot rill | A2 |
There are who rest not who think long | Y |
Till they discern as from a hill | A2 |
At the sun's hour of morning song | Y |
Known of souls only and those souls free | T |
The sacred spaces of the sea | T |
Algernon Charles Swinburne
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about Prelude poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Best Poems of Algernon Charles Swinburne